The Language of Time
by Eclectic Muse
Summary: Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz are two people separated by time who meet when they end up accidentally trading letters through the quantum mailbox at the country cottage they both live at. They strike up a friendship through written letters, but as their relationship and their feelings for each other grow, will they ever find a way to cross the years that separate them?
1. Chapter 1

Written for romanticmum on Tumblr, who suggested that I write an AU of the movie The Lake House. It was one of the few suggestions I'd had in awhile that really made me perk up and take notice, so I dove right in! I had a lot of fun researching and writing this fic, but I would be remiss if I didn't give a huge shoutout and thanks to recoveringrabbit and horsyunicorn for being very excellent, very thorough betas, who really helped me whip this into shape. I hope you guys enjoy the fic.

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Jemma Simmons sighed as she walked through the kitchen of her beloved country cottage for the last time, her fingers trailing over the smooth countertop. It was empty now where once it had been cheerfully cluttered: the electric kettle and the toaster, the tray that held all their post, the knife block by the stove, the stack of cookbooks that she rarely used but still kept around, just in case. Will had finished moving out the previous week, taking some of it with him, and Jemma had finished taking the rest of her belongings back to Glasgow the day before. Now she was doing a final walkthrough to make sure she hadn't missed anything.

Giving the kitchen with its sturdy white cabinets and stainless steel appliances one last, lingering look, Jemma turned to go through the front hall and into the conservatory. It was easily her favorite room of the cottage, with its tall glass windows and ceiling that let in natural light and provided ample views of the rolling Perthshire hills outside. She'd spent many a weekend and evening there, curled up in an armchair with her laptop and a cup of tea, marking papers or working on her research. There was just something about being surrounded by the greenery and color of the front garden with the sky above her that put her at peace, helped clear her mind, and let her work better.

Will hadn't cared for it much, saying it was too cold in the winter and too warm in the summer, preferring to keep to the lounge to watch telly and do his reading. It was one of the many things he hadn't agreed with her on. She hadn't minded, viewing the conservatory as her own little private nook of the house, and eventually, her refuge from Will's smothering plans for their future.

But none of that mattered anymore. Will had gone back to Perth and now, with no real practical reason to stay at the cottage, Jemma was moving back to Glasgow. It just didn't make sense to live alone in such a large house and commute nearly an hour to the university every day, when she could have a flat close by in the city again.

Despite pragmatism and her relationship having gone sour, she _had _made some good memories at the cottage, and she really was going to miss it. Warm cups of tea in the conservatory, sunlight slanting in the bedroom windows on a lazy Sunday morning, a crackling fire in the lounge during the first snowfall after they moved in. It had been a near-perfect realization of her childhood dream to own a quaint cottage in the Scottish countryside. But all good things had to come to an end eventually, she thought, and so this was ending, too.

Jemma stepped out of the conservatory and onto the front drive with a sigh, turning to lock the doors behind her. Once she was sure they were secure, she walked over to the older, mostly-unused front door of the original portion of the cottage and slipped a note for the next tenant into the letterbox affixed to the wall. Then she pulled her coat more snugly around her and stepped back to give the cottage one last look. Her eyes traced over the stone walls, the dormer windows, the old chimneys peeking out from the roof. She smiled slightly, bittersweet, before going to get in her car.

Turning the ignition, she shifted the car out of park and eased it around by the garage before pulling away, the tires crunching on the worn gravel of the drive. She was putting the past behind her and looking firmly to her future now, one that was blessedly boyfriend-free and focused on her own personal and career aspirations. Any thoughts or fantasies of an idyllic life in Perthshire would have to be set aside.

-:-

Leo Fitz unconsciously hunched his shoulders in as he drove slowly down the narrow lane, hoping he didn't meet anyone coming in the opposite direction. There wasn't anywhere to pull off for some distance; the road was bordered by thick hedges and trees on one side, and a low stone wall on the other. It was a sparsely populated area, though, so the chances of coming across another car were slim.

He glanced out the window at the pastoral hills climbing in the distance to his left, brown and dry beneath the flat grey January sky, and felt himself relax a little. He was coming to realize that his mum had probably been right in encouraging him to leave the city for a change of pace, hoping the country would give him the space to clear his mind and heal. It had been five months since the accident and while he'd progressed in leaps and bounds in the early days of his recovery, he seemed to have hit a stumbling block. He couldn't quite rid his hands and voice of the tremors that shook them, and words and concepts still slipped away from him frequently.

The lab had been more than accommodating, letting him work at his own pace; they didn't mind so much about deadlines, not with him, just so long as the work got done. But it had become a heavy source of frustration for him personally. All he wanted was to be able to go back to being the brilliant thinker and creator he'd been _before_, and his seeming inability to do so left him bitter, irritable, and jumpy, which only made his symptoms worse.

Thus his mother, concerned for him, had suggested the move away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Fitz hadn't liked the idea at first; it felt a lot like running away from his problems, and as stubborn as he could be, he refused to appear weak. But when his therapist agreed that it might not be such a bad idea, he began to consider it more seriously. And when the lab agreed to let him work from home three days a week on his designs, only needing to come in on Mondays and Tuesdays, the path forward seemed obvious.

So here he was, proud owner of a quaint cottage in the Scottish countryside, part of him still wondering if he had made the right decision.

Spying the gate to his new home up ahead, Fitz slowed down to make the turn onto the gravel and dirt drive. Seeing the wild clutter of bushes, trees, and tall grass that lined the drive around to the front of the cottage made him smile; it was one of the things that had first attracted him to the property. It gave the appearance of an English country garden with hardly any of the required upkeep, and he knew that once spring came, it would be bursting with color.

He parked close to the garage in order to give the removers' van space to park the next day, and went to go unlock the door to the conservatory so he could start unloading his car. Opening the boot, he pulled out the sleeping bag and camp chair he'd borrowed from Hunter, but before he went inside, he trudged around the conservatory to check the letterbox by the old front door. He'd already filled out a change of address form at the post office and wanted to check if he'd received any post yet.

There was just one envelope in the box, with no address on the front. Fitz frowned, turning it over to check the back, only to find it blank as well. Then he shrugged and shifted his grip on the sleeping bag before hurrying to go inside, eager to get out of the cold.

Once he had everything set up for an overnight stay without furniture-sleeping bag and camp chair in the lounge, electric kettle in the kitchen plugged in with tea he'd bought in the village set next to it, and a frozen pizza cooking in the oven-he turned his attention back to the mystery envelope. Leaning against the counter, he thumbed the flap open and pulled out a sheet of plain white stationery paper, crisply folded in half.

_Dear new tenant_, the letter said. _Welcome to your new home. As the previous tenant, please let me say that I hope you love living here as much as I did. It's a wonderful cottage, as I'm sure you know (or else you wouldn't be here). _

Fitz's mouth ticked up in a small smile.

_I filed a change of address with the post office, but I'm sure you know how unreliable that can be, so if anything slips through I would very much appreciate it if you would forward my post. My new address is below. Thank you so much in advance, Jemma Simmons. P.S. I apologize for the scorch marks on the tile in the conservatory. They were already there when I moved in here, as was the box in the master closet. _

"Scorch marks?" Fitz mumbled, squinting at the letter. He didn't recall the estate agent mentioning anything about scorch marks on the tile, and he didn't think he'd seen any during their walkthrough. Same with any boxes in the closet. Confused, he left the kitchen to go through the empty front hall and into the conservatory. There, he walked in a slow circle, peering at the tiled floor, but it was all clean-he didn't see anything that resembled burns or scorch marks, or any kind of blemish, really.

"Huh," he said.

He went back through the house, into the master bedroom and then the walk-in closet, flipping the light switch as he came in. There was no box on the floor and, when he checked the drawers, none there either.

Fitz scratched at his chin. This Jemma Simmons must have made a mistake. However, any further thought on the matter was interrupted by the sound of the kettle beeping in the kitchen. He hurried back to pour his tea and set the letter down on the counter, promptly forgetting about it.

-:-

Jemma let out a long sigh as she let herself into her dark flat, closing the door behind her and allowing herself a moment to lean back against it, thankful to have the day be at an end.

She genuinely enjoyed her job as a senior lecturer of chemistry, but things had been rather stressful as of late. She'd had a full day of lectures with office hours crammed in between, followed by the short amount of lab time she could squeeze in before she needed to come home and start prep work for the next day. It was just one more day in a seemingly endless slog of them, though, and she knew she only had herself to blame for her exhaustion.

There was her decision to move in the middle of term, which hadn't been the wisest choice but was ultimately unavoidable with the timing of her breakup and the end of their lease on the cottage. The time she'd had to devote to packing, moving, and unpacking was precious time she could have spent on the documentation portion of her research, and the little free time she did have was allotted to preparing her lectures and marking student papers. At this rate, she was never going to finish her book and make Reader.

It was a temporary thing, she knew that-she'd get caught up-but she was putting a lot of pressure on herself, as she always did. Jemma had always been driven to succeed, but it had really gone into overdrive when she'd earned her double doctorates in biochemistry and biotechnology at the age of sixteen and no one had wanted to take her on in a teaching position due to her young age. She'd been forced to stay on at Cambridge as a research fellow for years. It was the University of Glasgow who had finally hired her as a lecturer a few years ago.

Determined to prove she could make it in the academic world despite her youth, she'd delved deep into research in every spare moment she had, wanting to rise up the ranks in the faculty and become the youngest chaired professor in the university's history. She was well on her way, but she worried that any misstep or lack in momentum would result in failure.

She would just have to work harder. For the next two months. Then, term would be over, and she could take a short break before diving into the summer research projects her students had to complete.

Sighing again, Jemma went into the lounge to set her bag down by the sofa and turn on a lamp, then went back down the hall and into the kitchen, intent on getting something to eat before cracking open her laptop. But the sight that greeted her when she opened her fridge was depressing: old cartons of takeaway, a half-finished pack of beer, and a bottle of sriracha sauce.

She winced. She _knew _skipping her weekend Tesco run in favor of running tests in the lab was going to come back and haunt her.

Grumbling to herself, she shut the fridge and reached into the adjacent drawer to pull out the mass of takeaway menus she'd already acquired in her short time back in Glasgow. Picking out the one for Thai, she turned to trudge back to the lounge and picked her phone up out of her bag. It looked like it was going to be another night of ordering in.

-:-

When Fitz had first moved into the cottage, he'd originally considered putting his drafting table and the workbench he'd bought in the small studio that was attached to the far side, next to the lounge. But the lack of an inside door connecting the two stopped him, as he didn't much fancy the idea of having to go back and forth outside while he was working, particularly now during the winter with it being so gloomy and cold.

So he'd set up shop in the conservatory, directing his drafting table to face the windows so he could see the garden and the outlying scenery while he worked. He was glad of his decision, even if it meant wearing an extra-thick jumper to keep warm. There was something about the peaceful stillness of the landscape outside, blanketed in a layer of pristine white snow early in the morning, that lent itself to a calm, clear mind and the ability to think things through.

Today was a rare sunny day, light spilling in through the glass ceiling and across his workbench. Unfortunately, that was just about the only good thing going for him. Fitz's hands were shaking, worse than they had in some time, and it was turning his productivity to dust. No amount of breaks taken or physical exercises from his therapist seemed to help. If it were any other day, he might have just written it off as a loss and come back later in the evening or the next morning, refreshed and ready to try again. But he was really hoping to have a prototype of a tracker drone he was developing ready to bring in to the lab on Monday, and was worried that if he lost any more time, he'd be forced to make his bosses wait longer. And he was so tired of making people wait on him.

"Come on," he muttered through gritted teeth. He was holding solder wire in one hand and his soldering iron in the other, bent over the prototype on his workbench. The problem was that the tremors in his hands meant his fine motor control was shot, and he needed his hands to be steady in order to make the delicate connections necessary to complete the wiring on the drone. He didn't need to be handling the soldering iron at all, but Fitz's stubbornness had taken hold and he was determined to see the project done before the weekend.

Through sheer force of will, he managed to get his hands to cooperate enough to carefully solder down a few wires, but was having difficulty with one of the last connections. No matter how much he focused, he couldn't get his hand to stop shaking, making the soldering iron wobble in his grip.

"Come on," he grumbled again. "Bloody useless hands-"

The soldering iron wavered sharply, the tip of it glancing over the top of his index finger where it was holding the solder wire in his other hand. Fitz hissed in pain, reacting instinctively by jerking back from the workbench and dropping the soldering iron. He cringed as he heard it clatter on the tile floor below him, immediately pushing his stool back to stand and pick it up.

"Stupid," he hissed, sucking on the tip of his smarting finger and hating himself and his hands for _still _trembling, even worse now that he'd had a shock. "Stupid, _stupid_."

He'd bent to pick the soldering iron up off the floor when he paused, looking at where the hot end of the wand had obviously bounced over the tiles and come to rest. There were clear burn marks spoiling the tile.

A little warning bell went off in his head, and he immediately cast his mind back to the strange note he'd found in the letterbox when he'd first moved in. Carefully returning the soldering iron to its stand and unplugging it, all thoughts of his prototype currently forgotten, he hurried out of the conservatory and through the hall into the kitchen, where he'd left the note sitting with all the other post he'd received over the past few weeks. Pulling it out from underneath the small pile of ads and utility bills sitting in the tray, he frantically read over the neatly-printed words until he found what he was looking for.

_I apologize for the scorch marks on the tile in the conservatory. They were already there when I moved here. _

Fitz walked slowly back into the conservatory, reading over the letter again, and looked down at the floor-at the fresh scorch marks that _he _was responsible for. That couldn't possibly have been there for any previous tenant.

"What the hell?" he mumbled, deeply confused.

After another minute of staring, he went to his drafting table and sat down, digging through his blueprints and loose sheets of designs until he found a pad of blank paper. Pencil in hand, he ignored the continued shaking of his grip to formulate a response. He was certain this Jemma Simmons had sent her note to the wrong house, but he was very curious about the burn marks. Maybe he could get an answer from her.

Ten minutes and three crumpled-up drafts later, Fitz had a return letter finished and folded into an envelope, Jemma Simmons' new address printed as neatly and carefully as he could on the outside. He had to dig through his office supplies to find postage, but once that was squared away, he went outside and put his response in the letterbox for the postman to pick up.

Then he sighed heavily before going back inside. The burned tiles were a mystery, but he had to get his prototype finished unless he wanted pitying looks from his bosses at the lab on Monday. He didn't think he would be able to bear that. But first, maybe a cup of tea. Surely that would calm him, enough for him to work again without any problems or frustration.


	2. Chapter 2

"I can't believe it's so nice out. We better soak up this sun while it lasts."

Jemma hummed in agreement as she took a bite of her gyro, looking up at the blue sky delicately dotted with puffy white clouds. While it was still cool enough that they needed jackets, Bobbi was right-it was unseasonably warm for the middle of February, with a rare burst of winter sunshine. They were taking advantage of the pleasant weather to have a lunch date outside in Kelvingrove Park, just off the university's main building. They'd visited the Greek food truck parked on the street and were now sitting on a bench facing the monument to Lord Kelvin, watching other people enjoying the weather pass by.

Next to her, Bobbi shifted slightly on the bench to face her more directly. "So, any exciting plans for Valentine's Day?" she asked with a waggle of her eyebrows.

Jemma rolled her eyes. Bobbi was her dearest friend in Glasgow-she was a lecturer in the school of Life Sciences, and they had met at a faculty mixer shortly after Jemma had arrived. They'd hit it off immediately, finding solidarity in a shared passion for biology and in being young women trying to make names for themselves in a STEM field, but that was about where their similarities ended. Bobbi was headstrong and vivacious and personable, whereas Jemma was much more reserved and, if she was being honest, quite awkward socially. But they balanced each other out, so they made excellent friends.

"No, unless you count an evening in with a bottle of wine, my research, and _Planet Earth _on Netflix as exciting," Jemma said, knowing full well how Bobbi would react.

She wasn't disappointed. Bobbi _tsked _and shook her head. "You should get out, go to a bar or something! Maybe meet a cute guy." She smiled around her straw as she took a sip of soda. "I'm sure there's plenty out there."

Jemma made a face. Going to a bar alone, especially on Valentine's Day, felt a little desperate and far outside her idea of fun. She'd much rather stay home alone. "Oh, no, I don't think so," she said. "You know how I can get after a few drinks. I think I'll just spare everyone the embarrassment and stay in." She winced when her tone came off as more of a whine than a polite refusal.

Bobbi gave her a look that was familiar-the concerned one, the 'you work too much' one. "I just want to know that you're letting yourself live a little," she said kindly. "All of the work you're putting in is good, but you need to play a little, too." When Jemma didn't answer, instead taking another bite of her gyro, Bobbi added, "What about Milton? You know, that guy from the physics lab? You two seemed to be getting on pretty well."

"_Milton_?" Jemma croaked, hurriedly swallowing. "Milton Abernathy? Oh, no. Not him. I can't have a conversation with him at all; he agrees with everything I say, no matter if it's what type of tea is best at the Gilchrist or the most efficient way to produce his nanofiber tech in the lab. I require at least a _little _debate, Bobbi. He's _boring_."

Bobbi was trying to stifle her laughter behind her gyro and failing miserably. "Okay, I get it. Milton's a dud. I won't mention him again. Anybody else you might have your eye on?"

Jemma shook her head. There were plenty of intellectually brilliant single people on the Glasgow faculty, but none of them _interested _her, not in a way that made her want to come back for more. And with it being so soon after her relationship with Will had failed abysmally, she didn't feel ready to dip her toes back into the dating pool.

"What about you?" she asked, turning the focus around to Bobbi. "Do _you _have any plans?"

Bobbi's eyes lit up. "I do, actually," she said, smiling. "I'm seeing this new guy, he works for a fancy R&D lab, have I told you about him?" Jemma shook her head. "His name is-"

They were interrupted by the loud blare of a horn and tires screeching nearby. They looked over to see a travel bus coming to a sudden halt on the road right across from them and-Jemma's heart stopped-someone being thrown to the asphalt a few yards in front of it.

"Oh, _shit_," Bobbi gasped.

Jemma stared for a second in horror before being galvanized into action. "Call an ambulance!" she cried, dropping her gyro and leaping to her feet, sprinting for the road. As she rounded the statue of Lord Kelvin and neared the pavement, she saw that it was a man crumpled facedown on the road, his limbs splayed out at awkward angles. A passing pedestrian was hovering in stunned shock; on the near side of the street, a car had stopped and the driver was getting out, clearly wanting to help. "I have some medical training!" she yelled, dodging around the front of the stopped car. "I can help!"

She skidded to a stop at the injured man's side, falling to her knees and crouching down to try and see his face. "Sir? Sir?" she called, wanting to ascertain if he was responsive. "Can you hear me?"

But his eyes were closed, blood oozing from a gash on his forehead where it was pressed to the asphalt, and his body was perfectly still. Nearly frantic, Jemma shifted to put her ear next to his mouth to listen for breathing. After a few agonizing seconds she felt the faintest puff of air on her ear, and she sat back up on her heels with a rush of relief. He was alive. She looked up at the sound of quick, heavy footfalls to see Bobbi running up to her, phone in hand.

"Ambulance is on its way," she panted, then looked down with wide, round eyes. "Is he-?"

"He's alive," Jemma said, glancing down at the unconscious man. "He's breathing."

But that was where her ability to help ended. She'd said she had medical training, but that was in CPR through a first aid class she'd taken the previous year. She wasn't a first responder. Given the cause of his injuries, she was afraid to move the man and put him into a recovery position, lest she cause him more harm. Her options were frighteningly limited until the ambulance arrived, and time did not appear to be on his side.

The scrape of shoes on the asphalt caught her attention, and she looked over to see the driver of the bus standing just outside the open door to his vehicle, obviously upset. Passengers were visible through the windshield crowding the aisle, trying to see what was happening. "I couldn't stop," he said, his voice shaking. "He just walked right out in front of me."

Bobbi swallowed and pocketed her phone, then hurried over to the driver, taking him aside with a calming hand at his shoulder, talking to him in soothing tones. Jemma's stomach twisted into knots as she looked back down at the injured man, then at the growing crowd around them. "Stay-just stay back," she called, holding her hands out. "Keep the area clear."

Then she turned her full attention back to the broken man in front of her, her hands fluttering over him, unsure what to do, but needing to do _something_. She settled on laying a hand over his where it rested on the asphalt, leaning down again so her face was close to his. "Help is on the way," she said calmly, hoping he could hear her somehow, hoping he was reassured, even though he couldn't respond. "They'll be here soon. Just hold on a little longer."

She sat back and looked at the man, her heart in her throat, but still, he didn't respond. In the distance, she could hear sirens. She gently squeezed his hand and leaned back in. "Hear that?" she whispered, willing with all her heart for him to be okay, this stranger she didn't know. "Help is coming. Just hold on."

-:-

Jemma sat on the edge of the pavement, numb, watching the paramedics move about and do their jobs. Beside her, Bobbi sat and watched them too, staying silent while they both sorted through their churning thoughts and emotions.

He hadn't made it. The poor man struck by the bus had been pronounced dead on the scene, leaving Jemma red-eyed and reeling. She couldn't process that she had watched someone die right in front of her, in such a terrible way, and she'd been helpless to do anything. To say nothing of how the bus driver felt-the police were still talking to him on the far side of the street by his bus, and he looked positively desolate, his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his shoulders slumped, his head hanging.

"I was going to spend the afternoon in the lab," Jemma mumbled, watching the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles reflected in the windshield of the bus. "I don't know how I'll manage to get any work done now."

Bobbi looked over at her. "I think you should just go home," she said quietly. "This… it would shake anyone. But you did the best you could."

Jemma watched as a few of the paramedics wheeled a gurney carrying a black body bag over to the ambulance and slid it into the back. It felt like her throat was closing up. Suddenly all she could see was the man's face, still in death; he'd been young, maybe even younger than she was. He probably had a family somewhere, waiting for him to come home. Now he never would.

"I feel like I could have done more," she managed, clenching her fists in her lap.

Bobbi reached out to rub a comforting hand over her back. "Do you want me to cancel my date tonight and come over? Maybe you shouldn't be alone."

Jemma shook her head, swiping a hand beneath her eyes. "No. No, I want you to go out and do something nice. You should have that."

"Are you sure?" Bobbi bit her lip, her expression concerned. "I haven't been seeing this guy long, he'll understand if I tell him it's an emergency."

"Really. You should go." Jemma waved a hand and managed a brave smile for her. "David Attenborough will keep me company just fine."

Bobbi watched her for a minute, clearly unconvinced, before finally nodding and squeezing her shoulder. "I still think you should do something nice for yourself," she said. "Next weekend. Get out of the city for a little bit. Forget about your research, treat yourself to a country bed and breakfast, maybe even go visit your parents if you want to. Do something-_not _involving work-that makes you feel nice. You deserve it. Maybe it'll take the sting of all this-" Bobbi nodded at the scene before them. "And replace it with something better."

Jemma nodded slowly, looking back down at her hands in her lap. She could see the wisdom in what Bobbi was saying, even if she wasn't so sure how it would work in practice. She knew it would be some time before she could move past the events of the day and what she'd seen, but she could take her friend's advice and try to counterbalance a bad experience with something good.

That was how she found herself driving up the A9 towards Perth the following Saturday, headed for the old cottage. She'd found herself wishing quite frequently over the course of the week for the peacefulness of the garden, the faint babbling noise of the burn at the bottom of the hill. She missed having a cup of tea in the quiet of the conservatory. A quick check on the realty site Will had used showed that the cottage was still up for lease, so Jemma didn't feel too badly about driving out to spend a few hours recharging with some research notes-Bobbi didn't have to know about those-and a travel mug of her favorite tea.

She didn't truly relax, though, until she pulled around the curve of the drive and saw that the cottage was completely deserted. Smiling to herself, she parked the car and got out to stretch, before going to see if the spare key was still where she'd kept it, in a fake rock next to the potted plant by the old front door. It was, which made her smile turn a little wicked-that meant she could go sit in the conservatory if the weather turned rainy, which was a possibility given the overcast sky.

As she turned away from the door, Jemma caught sight of the letterbox on the wall and swung back around. While she was there, she might as well check and see if the post had misdelivered any of her mail. She went up to the box and flipped the lid, murmuring a quiet "a-ha!" when she spied a single envelope lying inside. But when she pulled it out, she found that it was addressed to her, only at her current address in Glasgow.

She hummed, mystified, then carefully tore open the envelope. Inside was a short note written in cramped, shaky print.

_Ms. Simmons, I got your note, but I think there's been a misunderstanding. According to the estate agent, I'm the first person to live here for several months. Unless your note has been sitting here all this time? Anyway, maybe you meant to leave it at Larch Cottage down the lane. I'm curious about the scorch marks, though. There weren't any when I moved in. - Leo Fitz _

Jemma frowned at the letter, then held it a little further away and tilted her head, as if that would help it make more sense. How could someone be writing to her like they were living in the cottage, if it was currently empty? She walked over to the conservatory and peered inside the windows, deeper into the house; there was no furniture, just as she suspected. The cottage was uninhabited. And she could clearly see the scorch marks on the conservatory's tile floor, just where they'd always been. She glanced at the letter again. It was completely baffling.

There was also the date signed at the top of the letter-2014, two years out of date. Either it was a mistake, or this Leo Fitz wasn't quite all there. That settled it for her: this man was likely having a laugh at her expense. Perhaps he'd been interested in leasing the cottage and had come by for a viewing and found her letter, then decided to reply for reasons unknown, and the post just hadn't been picked up. Maybe he was a neighbor with nothing better to do. The country was rather slow, after all, with very few things close at hand for amusement.

Whoever he was, Leo Fitz wasn't funny. But she could certainly play his game. If he really was a bored neighbor, he was probably expecting a reply of some sort. Pressing her lips into a line, Jemma went back to her car and sat in the front seat, digging around in her bag until she found her notebook and a pen, intent on writing a terse reply.

_Dear Mr. Fitz, I'm quite familiar with Larch Cottage and I can assure you that I've never lived there. Call it what you like, but I don't think a cottage should be over 500 square meters. That's far too large for my tastes. So, let's try again: I used to live at this cottage, but then I moved. Now I live at 79 White Street in Glasgow. I would really appreciate it if you would forward my mail if you happen to get any. And by the way, it's 2016, not 2014. _

She didn't bother with an envelope or postage. The postman likely wouldn't take it if it wasn't in an envelope, and this Leo Fitz character was obviously just checking the letterbox himself. Satisfied with her response, she marched back over to the letterbox and slipped it inside with a firm _clink_.

-:-

"2016?!" Fitz exclaimed, his mouth full of bacon butty. "Is she mad?"

He set the letter down next to his plate and shook his head, reaching for his tea to take a sip. Not only did Jemma Simmons have a stick up her arse, she was crazy. It was very obviously 2014-his calendar, his phone, his rational brain, and the bloody atomic clock all said so. She was off in her own little delusional world where it was evidently the future and scorch marks existed where they couldn't, and to top it off, she was supremely snooty about it. He didn't know which was worse-that, or the fact that she'd obviously been by the cottage to drop the note off while he was away, since it hadn't come through the post. He shivered a little as he took another sip of tea. He didn't need a mad woman staking out his house.

But he could fight fire with fire. After he finished his breakfast, Fitz sat down to draft a reply that laid on his tendency for sarcasm and grouchiness rather thick. He had a plan in mind. He could beat Jemma Simmons at her own game, and hopefully get her to leave him alone.

-:-

Later that week, Fitz was walking down a busy street in Glasgow's city centre with his hands shoved in his coat pockets, his head ducked down against the chilly air. He'd just gotten out of a session with his therapist and was headed to a pub to catch up with a friend of his from work for a beer. He hadn't gotten out much even when he still lived in the city, and now that he'd moved away his opportunities for a social life had dwindled down to almost zero. Most of the time that suited Fitz just fine, as he was a loner at heart, but occasionally even he felt the need for company. That made his semi-regular meetups with Lance Hunter even more important.

Reaching their agreed-upon pub, Fitz hurried inside and scanned the room as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. He spotted Hunter already sitting at the bar and weaved through the tables to join him.

"Hey," he said, sliding onto the stool next to him. "Sorry I'm late, we, um, we-ran over a little at the doctor's."

"No worries, mate," Hunter replied, unperturbed. "I went ahead and got you a drink." He nudged an open bottle of beer across the bar toward him. "How'd it go?"

Fitz shrugged as he picked the bottle up and took a long pull. "About as well as it ever does, I guess," he said.

Normally, he didn't like talking to anyone outside of his mum about his struggles with physical therapy, but Hunter was an exception. He had been one of the few people who'd actually come to see Fitz in the hospital after his accident, and it meant more to him than he knew how to say. They had been friends before-Hunter worked in the IT department at SciTech and they crossed paths a lot in the labs, leading to plenty of conversation-but it had been Hunter's care and support throughout his recovery that had truly solidified their relationship. Hunter could be crass and gauche and a bit dense at times, but he was a keeper.

Seeing that Hunter was still waiting for him to elaborate, Fitz sighed. "I told her my hands were bothering me again," he said. "So she wants me to stay on my meds and, um, go back on my exercises twice a day-the ones with the, the stress ball and the weight that I told you about." Hunter nodded. "They're boring as sin, but they do help, I think."

Hunter took a swig of his beer. "I thought you said you were doing better?" He nodded at Fitz's hands. "They look fine now."

Fitz sighed again. "Thought I was." He held his left hand out just above the bar. It wasn't shaking now, of course. "But I was having a bad enough time the other day, thought I should mention it. Couldn't hold a bloody soldering iron steady for five minutes."

"Hmm." Hunter frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe you were just tired or stressed. Those things trip you up, yeah? And I know you've been pushing yourself to catch up."

If he had been anyone else, even his therapist, Fitz might have snapped at Hunter in irritation, so much did he despise even the perceived implication that he was less than. Instead, he just grumbled and sank down on his stool a bit, clutching his beer. "I just wish it didn't feel like it's always, um, one step forward and two steps back," he mumbled. "Feels like I'll be doing this for the rest of my life." He clenched and unclenched his fist, demonstrating the motion he'd been instructed to do with his stress ball.

"Well, so what if you do?" Hunter asked. When Fitz eyed him, he swiveled on his stool to face him more directly. "Look, mate, I think you're doing great. Remember where you were just a few months ago? I remember when you couldn't even hold a pencil or say your own name." Fitz scoffed quietly and took another pull of his beer. "No, really," Hunter insisted. "If you've made all this progress in just that amount of time, think of where you'll be in another few months. Or this time next year."

It was an appealing thought, Fitz had to admit, even if it felt more like a fantasy at the moment. Steady hands, clear speech, and working full-time back at the lab again: it was all he really wanted. But the logical part of his brain realized that Hunter was talking sense in the face of his despair, and it was this that made Fitz give him a weak but genuine smile.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "I just need…" He waved a hand vaguely at his head. "Patience."

Hunter's face broke out in a smile. "Now that's what I like to hear," he enthused, clapping him on the back. Then he turned back to face the bar and spun his beer bottle around in a circle between his fingers. "But let me tell you about this idiot proposal Idaho tried to get past Accounting last week…"

They went back and forth like that for awhile, Hunter telling Fitz what he was missing out on in the day-to-day life at the lab, and Fitz humoring Hunter with tales of his trips into the village near the cottage, and how boring and staid Hunter thought it must be. Fitz insisted that he really did like it out there, which Hunter patently refused to believe, but still promised to come out for a visit soon.

Once they were done with their beers and had gotten their fill of yelling at the football match showing on the telly above the bar, Hunter dutifully followed Fitz onto the subway and then on foot to the West End. Fitz was a man on a mission.

"So what are we doing again?" Hunter asked as they walked down a dimly-lit residential street.

"Delivering a letter," Fitz said, his focus intent on the GPS on his phone.

Hunter made a noncommittal noise behind him. "Right," he said. Fitz heard the scuff of his shoe against the pavement. "And this requires being delivered in person? At night?"

"I'm proving a point."

"Ah. I see. And who are we proving a point to, and why?"

Following his phone's instructions, they turned a corner. "A mad woman who's been leaving weird letters at my house," Fitz said.

He realized his mistake the instant Hunter started crowing loudly. "Oh, a _lady_!" he exclaimed, skipping to catch up with him and bump shoulders. "Well, that makes this much more interesting! You should've said. Never thought I'd see the day when you'd actively seek out a woman-"

Fitz stepped out of Hunter's way, scowling. "Oh, shove it, will you? I don't know a, a single thing about this woman except that she's lost her mind. She could be a pensioner, for all I know." He looked back down at his phone. "Probably is."

"I bet not," Hunter countered, still grinning. "Not if she's making it all the way out to where you are now, just for a laugh. Maybe she's hot. Maybe she's new at the lab and saw you in your cardigans, got your address somehow, and this is her completely ridiculous way of flirting."

Fitz shot him another irritated glare. "Now _you _sound mad."

Hunter spread his hands wide. "I'm just saying, Fitzy. It's not impossible."

Fitz sighed and looked back at his phone again, then slowed to a stop. According to the GPS, they were at 79 White Street. He looked up at the row of terraced houses in front of them and frowned deeply.

Beside him, Hunter was frowning, too. "Uh, this isn't it, is it?"

Half of the row, including the address Jemma Simmons had given him, was covered by scaffolding-it was being renovated. No one was living there.

"Um." Fitz looked down at his phone and double-checked the map, then frowned back up at the scaffolding again. "Yeah, this is it."

Hunter crossed his arms and looked both ways down the street. "You sure you got the right address?"

Fitz nodded. "Yeah. She, um, very clearly wrote 79 White Street on both her letters."

"Huh." Hunter nodded, giving the scaffolding a considering look before turning to him. "Want me to go ring the buzzer?"

Fitz rolled his eyes, feeling his cheeks heat up. "Sod off, Hunter."

Hunter's laughter rang out over the empty street around them.

-:-

The next morning, Fitz took up pen and paper again to write a new reply. He was many things, but he was not a quitter, and he was not going to let one nutty woman from Glasgow best him. He infused it with as much reproach and grouchiness as he could and, when he was done, left it in the letterbox without bothering with an envelope or postage. It obviously couldn't go to White Street, and if this Jemma Simmons was that intent on playing her weird little game, she could come get his letter herself while he was away at the lab or in the village on the weekend.

Hopefully, this would be the last of it. But, given the challenging tone of his letter, he had the feeling it wouldn't be.

-:-

One week later, Jemma was sitting on her sofa trying to go over her notes for the next day's lecture, but her attention kept being drawn to the piece of paper sitting on the coffee table in front of her.

She'd gone back to the cottage over the weekend on impulse, needing a break from the grind of research and teaching. Having found that a few hours spent reading in the tranquility of the front garden did wonders for her stress levels and peace of mind, a return trip had seemed like a good idea, and even the technical fact that she was trespassing didn't deter her. If an estate agent happened by with someone to view the property, she supposed she could just tell the truth-she was a former tenant who had been struck by a fit of nostalgia and just wanted to come by and see the cottage for a moment.

There was another, smaller part of her that was curious to see if the peculiar Leo Fitz had answered her letter, but mostly she'd just wanted a break.

She'd ended up with both a break _and _a reply, and it looked like Leo Fitz was spitting mad. She couldn't understand why, when she'd been perfectly cordial in her letter. His response had baffled her so much that she hadn't thought to write back while she was there, and had instead brought the letter home with her, where it had sat on her coffee table for a few days.

But now it was distracting her from her work, his clear anger and the fact of his bizarre insistence on it being a different year sticking in her mind. Sighing, she set her laptop aside and leaned forward to pick the letter up off the coffee table to read it again.

_Ms. Simmons - I bet you think you're funny, don't you? I went to 79 White Street and you weren't there. You can't be there. Half the row is under renovation. So what exactly are you playing at? Maybe you really did mean to hit up Larch Cottage, because your wrong address would match your wrong date. It's 2014. Check a bloody calendar. _

Jemma narrowed her eyes at it. Really, there was no need to be so rude, especially when his letter made no sense. What did he mean, her row was under renovation? It very clearly wasn't, or else she wouldn't be sitting there!

"Maybe _you _got the wrong address," she muttered tartly. "With _your _wrong date."

She knew she should just let the letter lie and not respond, because he was clearly a little soft in the head, but she couldn't stand it when other people were wrong and she had the facts to prove it. She thought about clipping out a piece of her calendar from January to send him, but that would be too straightforward. No, if he was going to be a complete arse, then she could match him wit for wit _and _gain the upper hand at the same time. It took a few minutes of careful deliberation and a search through her photos from March of 2014 on her laptop to decide upon a solution, but once she did, Jemma was pleased.

"If he thinks I'm trying to be funny, then, well, I'll just have to be, won't I?" she said to the empty cartons of takeaway on her table.

Standing, she went into the kitchen and rifled through her cabinets for a minute until she found her box of Lemsip. Then she brought it back into the lounge and the sofa to sit down with her notebook and write her scathing reply.

_Fine, my mysterious (and frankly rude) correspondent. I'll play by your rules. If you truly are when and where you say you are, then you'll need these. There was a freak late snow that year and everyone fell ill. I prescribe plenty of rest and lots of fluids. Do let me know how you're feeling in a few days. I would hate to think that you suffered needlessly without aid in the past. _

If delivering the letter required another drive out to the cottage, Jemma didn't mind. It pulled her away from her research and progress on her book, but she justified it to herself by thinking that she was taking Bobbi's advice and setting aside some time for just herself, free from work and worry and stress. If that time was being devoted to what felt like a rapidly-burgeoning grudge match, what Bobbi didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

Slipping her note into the letterbox, along with a couple sachets of Lemsip, felt very satisfying. "See how _that _suits you," Jemma said, before turning to go back to her car and her copy of _Incomplete Nature_.

-:-

"Rubbish," Fitz said, tossing the Lemsip sachets onto the kitchen counter. "Now she's just making things up."

Jemma Simmons' letter had graduated from uptight to downright insulting, though he wasn't sure he should have expected otherwise, given the tone of his last reply. Regardless, she wasn't backing down from her apparent belief that she lived in the future and was now pretending at telling his own future by predicting the weather. Well. He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of a response, not when she expected him to be sniffling and miserable by the week's end.

"She can keep her ruddy Lemsip," he mumbled, and turned around to head into the conservatory to get started on the day's work.

A few days later, however, he was regarding the weather report on the telly with an odd feeling in his stomach that wasn't quite dread. The forecast was calling for a high chance of heavy snow, unusual this late in the winter. It was making his eyeball twitch. The last thing he wanted was for sanctimonious little Jemma Simmons to be right, but it was an unnerving coincidence. There was no way she could accurately foretell the weather, and anyway, it _was _winter-the chances for a freak snow weren't all that bad, surely. Not in Scotland.

He went to bed with the question of the validity of her letter circling his brain, but he determinedly quashed it. Letters from the future simply weren't possible. It was the stuff of science fiction. Jemma Simmons was just a deluded woman with far too much time on her hands-and _not _the shy, nubile young lab assistant Hunter insisted she was.

The next morning, Fitz watched snow fall thick and fast outside the conservatory windows with mounting irritation. It felt an awful lot like the universe was letting Jemma win, and he really, _really _disliked that. He hated being wrong, and he didn't want to admit that he might be. He could already imagine how smug Jemma would be-in words, at least, because he had no idea what she looked or sounded like, but words alone were bad enough. The paper would be dripping with her self-righteous victory, and the thought of it made him grind his teeth.

When the following day gifted him with a sore throat and runny nose, it felt like insult added to injury. Fitz ran the probabilities in his head of someone accurately predicting both the weather and his health in the space of a week and wasn't pleased with the results. But beyond that, there was also a touch of fascination, the excitement of coming upon something new. The scientist in him couldn't deny his innate curiosity at being presented with a puzzle.

Because while it looked like Jemma Simmons was indeed right-it also meant that her being right proved his letterbox was a portal into the future.


	3. Chapter 3

Late the next morning, Fitz sat at the kitchen table with one hand curled around a steaming mug of Lemsip, the other idly picking at a piece of toast. The Lemsip was helping with his congestion and mild fever, and he was thankful Jemma had sent it, now. She may have done it out of spite, but it had proven genuinely useful and he supposed he couldn't look too unfavorably upon that.

Which brought him back to the puzzle of his letterbox. It was a very strange thing to consider, that it was possibly some sort of quantum portal to the future. He could already think of a wide variety of tests he wanted to run on it, but he didn't have the necessary equipment at the cottage, and he couldn't exactly show up to the lab with the letterbox under one arm. Besides, what if moving it disrupted its time-bending properties? Then he would be out of a unique opportunity for study, and access to the plethora of questions he wanted to ask Jemma Simmons. Assuming she would even answer them, that is. He realized the churlish tone of his last letter had probably ruled that out as a likelihood.

(And he still had to convince her that he was from her past, after all. Just because he was leaning heavily toward believing her now didn't mean she was going to think he was telling the truth, too.)

Sighing, he pulled his notepad toward him and picked up his pen, tapping it thoughtfully against his lips. He needed something that would be at once conciliatory and showing he was open to more discussion. After a moment of deliberation, he began to write.

Once he was done, he bundled up in his house robe and slippers and went out the old front door to the letterbox, so he wouldn't have to go through the snow. He eyed it a bit before lifting the lid and dropping his note in, but nothing exciting happened. It remained just that-a letterbox. But if it truly was a wormhole of sorts to the future, then hopefully he would get a response soon. He'd noticed that both of her replies had arrived on a Wednesday, and seeing as that was today, maybe he wouldn't have long to wait.

-:-

Jemma didn't make any excuses to herself this time-today she was driving to the cottage specifically to see if Leo Fitz had replied to her. She was counting on having made him angry enough to give up the game and confess to pranking her. She had to admit that a tiny part of her would miss the thrill of having someone to argue with who wasn't her ex-boyfriend. Going out to the country for the afternoon was quickly becoming a much-needed respite from the stress of her day-to-day life, and the letters were almost amusing, really, even if the author was being deliberately obtuse.

She pulled into the drive with good cheer, putting the car in park and getting out with a bounce in her step. If he hadn't replied, it was no skin off her back, but she was really hoping he had.

Therefore she was delighted to find a piece of paper in the letterbox, even if it was immediately tempered by the fact that it was just a small sheet. Still, Jemma quickly pulled it out, unfolding it with eager anticipation.

_You were right. It did snow, and I did fall ill. So, is this actually happening?  
P.S. Thank you for the Lemsip. _

Jemma blinked. That was… not quite what she had expected. He had given in, yes, but not in the way she thought he would. She'd anticipated sulking, or anger, or even pettiness, but not-acceptance. She squinted at the letter. Of course it had snowed. And of course everyone had fallen ill. She remembered being miserable with a stuffy nose and cough herself. But why thank her for the Lemsip?

She looked between the paper and the letterbox a few times. Maybe he was just humoring her. Maybe she'd been a little too stroppy in her last letter and this was his offer of an olive branch. As to what 'this' was that was happening, perhaps he just meant whatever strange type of pen pal relationship they'd seemed to have established.

Well, she could humor him too, she supposed. Jemma went back to her car to pull out her notebook from her bag and scrawl a short, sweet response, returning to the door to drop it in the letterbox with a soft _clink. _Maybe her polite note would get a longer reply from him next week.

-:-

Fitz was just turning the knob on the door to go back inside when he heard the letterbox rattle. He paused, looking at it with a frown. Had his note just settled inside? Or maybe-

He abandoned the door and returned to the letterbox in a flash, eagerly reaching inside. The paper he pulled out was larger than the slip from his notepad, and when he unfolded it with trembling fingers he looked at the new message with a mixture of amazement and awe.

_Why shouldn't it be? We can write to each other.  
P.S. You're welcome. _

He couldn't believe it. He'd just received a real, true message from the future, right through his letterbox-he'd witnessed it himself, the letterbox hadn't left his sight-and she wanted to keep writing. The scientist in him wanted to leap for joy and start in with the host of questions he had, but-that probably wouldn't be a good idea. He hadn't gotten as far in life as he had without realizing that his intellect and laser focus on all things science-related could be off-putting, especially in social situations. He didn't know a thing about Jemma Simmons except that she lived in Glasgow in the future and before that, apparently, she'd lived in the cottage.

(Which meant that he would have to move out at some point, but he wasn't going to concern himself with that at the moment.)

Fitz turned to rush back into the house, hurrying into the dining room and sliding into his seat. Picking up his pen, he tapped it against the table, jiggling his leg anxiously, all while trying to think of something acceptable to say that wouldn't scare Jemma off.

He drafted and discarded several different ideas before finally settling on something honest and open but simple, and wrote it down carefully beneath her message. Then he went back outside, dropped it in the letterbox, and waited, his hopes high for a quick response.

-:-

Jemma was sitting in the front seat of her car with the door open to enjoy the early spring sun, deep into chapter six of _Incomplete Nature_, when she heard a faint noise come from the direction of the cottage. She glanced up, but didn't see anything amiss; maybe it had been a bird's wings flapping, or a squirrel scampering over the roof shingles. She went back to her book, but hadn't read more than a sentence or two before she set it back down in her lap and her eyes went to the letterbox.

She gave it a suspicious look. The noise had sounded a bit like an envelope or a piece of paper being dropped in, if she thought about it that way. But that was ridiculous. Her ears were playing tricks on her, and it wasn't as if the cottage was haunted. She'd lived there long enough to know. She didn't even believe in ghosts.

Except… there was Leo Fitz's bizarre insistence that he lived two years in the past. Was it possible that perhaps he wasn't a neighbor or someone from the village who had been dropping off letters during the week? It was a completely mad idea, but a sudden curiosity seized her, and Jemma simply had to know.

Setting her book aside, she stood and walked slowly up to the front stoop and the letterbox attached to the wall. She felt relieved to pull out the same piece of paper she'd put in, and smiled to herself as her shoulders relaxed. But when she unfolded the note, she could have sworn her heart stopped.

There was a new message written beneath hers-in Leo Fitz's handwriting.

_It shouldn't be because it's impossible. This is breaking every known law of physics. But still, it's happening.  
So what now? _

Jemma stared at the words, her pulse pounding in her ears. Then she quickly darted wide eyes around the front of the cottage and the garden. How could she have missed someone sneaking up on her? There wasn't a lot of space between the stoop, the drive, and the shrubbery that bordered the front lawn. Someone getting past her, snatching her note from the letterbox, replying, and then leaving, all without her noticing just didn't seem possible at all.

But what else could it have been?

Maybe she'd just been too engrossed in her book to notice. She looked around again, irked at the thought that Leo Fitz was likely hiding in the bushes nearby and having a laugh at her expense. She took a few steps off the stoop, peering into some of the closer greenery, but didn't see anything. Sighing, Jemma returned to her car and pulled her pen from her bag to scribble a very short question beneath his message. Then she went back to the letterbox and dumped the paper inside with a certain amount of annoyance. Whatever it was he was up to, she wouldn't let him have the last word.

-:-

Fitz had his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his hands shoved inside his robe, shifting his weight from foot to foot in order to try and keep warm. He knew he didn't really need to be outside this long in the bitter cold, not when he was sick, but he was far too eager to see if Jemma would write back. He had reason to assume she was still there at the cottage, on the other side of the time gap that separated them, and enough minutes had ticked by that he thought maybe she was writing a long reply. It was possible she had a lot to say in answer to his question. He'd left it open-ended on purpose, after all.

He hunched his shoulders and wiggled his legs even faster, his breath coming out in white puffs in front of his face. It might be a good idea to put on actual clothes if he was going to be out there for any length of time, instead of freezing in the snow in his pajamas. Maybe-

The letterbox rattled again, startling him and making him jump despite himself. Adrenaline coursing through his veins, Fitz leapt for the box, flipping up the lid and quickly reaching inside.

He was somewhat disappointed to find one short missive written below his last message.

_Where are you hiding? _

It was a simple question, but one that left him slightly taken aback. Hiding? What did she-_oh. _His heart sank. She still thought he was in her present and was pranking her somehow. Well, there was really nothing else for it, then. He would just have to be very specific.

He plucked his pen from his robe pocket and, after fumbling for a brief moment, braced the note against the letterbox so he could write his answer below her question. Then he folded it back up and slipped it inside, anxious to see how she would reply.

-:-

Jemma jumped, gasping, when she heard something jostle near the cottage again barely a moment after she'd sat down in her car once more. She shot a glare at the letterbox, then looked around the front of the cottage. Still, there was no one in sight. Definitely suspicious and more than a little irked now, she set her book down again and got out of the car, taking several steps past the boot to peer around the side of the cottage. There was no one there. As she walked slowly back toward the stoop, she eyed the shrubbery lining the drive, but she didn't see anyone hiding there, either.

She would check the letterbox just to be sure. Maybe he'd gotten past her once, but he couldn't have done it twice. She marched straight up to it and pulled the slip of paper out. Upon unfolding it, however, her heart stopped once again, her breath leaving her in a whoosh.

_I'm not hiding. I'm at Tomnabrack Cottage, March 12th, 2014. _

Her head spun. "You _can't be_!" she cried to the empty garden around her. Frustrated, she looked from side to side again, behind her, everywhere she could see from the front stoop. "Hello?" she called. "Come out, it's not funny anymore!"

No one answered.

Suddenly, it was too much. Feeling eminently foolish and stupid, Jemma strode back to her car. For the first time since she'd started coming on the weekend, the cottage didn't seem peaceful. It felt confusing and more than a little alarming, and she didn't know how to deal with it. Folding the note back in half, she stuck it between the pages of her notebook and put it back in her bag. She couldn't stay any longer. Sparing the letterbox one last glance, she shut the door and turned the ignition, pulling the car around to drive away.

-:-

Fitz stayed outside by the letterbox far longer than he should have, until he couldn't feel his toes inside his slippers and his nose and the tips of his ears had gone red with the cold. But no response ever came. He wondered if he'd done the wrong thing by listing his time and place. Maybe stating it so baldly had _really _made Jemma disbelieve him. Or, perhaps, something had happened on her end that had pulled her attention away, and she actually believed him now, but would respond later.

He would be more than happy to go back inside where it was warm, finish his Lemsip while thawing out, and check the letterbox again in a few hours. That would give her plenty of time to reply. Blowing out a breath, he wiggled his toes to get some feeling back into them before reaching for the door handle and hurrying back inside.

-:-

Jemma decided to stop by the inn in the village before heading back to Glasgow. She'd been a frequent patron of the little restaurant and bar when she'd lived at the cottage, and getting a bite to eat there felt like a good way to calm down before making the drive back into the city, rather than vacillate between being angry and unsettled the entire way there.

Coming inside and seeing the painted stone walls and worn wooden furniture brought her a nice sense of familiarity and relief as she took a seat at a small table adjacent to the bar. She was immediately greeted by Tom, the friendly older man who had been tending the bar nearly every time she'd come to visit.

"Jemma!" he said, grinning widely. "It's so good to see you, you haven't been by in awhile. How are you doing?"

She smiled up at him. "I'm doing well, thank you. Staying busy." _Being pranked by locals. _"How've you been?"

Tom shrugged easily. "Good, good. Staying busy myself, keeping these louts out of trouble." He nodded at the bar, where two of the regulars sat nursing pints. "We heard you moved out of the cottage. Shame. Did you and Will decide to go back to Perth?"

Jemma winced, glancing down at the table and subtly adjusting the silverware. "Ah, no. We broke up just before Christmas. He went back to Perth, and I'm back in Glasgow now."

To his merit, Tom looked just as uncomfortable as she felt. "Sorry to hear that," he said, and he sounded like he meant it. "Always thought you two made a lovely couple."

Jemma gave a little shrug and attempted a smile. "Well... I suppose we did, until we didn't." Then she winced again, her nose scrunching up.

Thankfully, Tom saved her by pulling a notepad and pen out of his apron. "What can I get for you today, then?" he asked. She let out a relieved sigh and folded her hands on the table, asking for her old usual of a hot sandwich and chips on the side. It didn't take too long to bring out to her, and as she ate, she did her best to rationalize what exactly had happened at the cottage.

Try as she might, though, there was no real way to explain how the new messages had shown up on the paper. She knew she would have noticed someone trying to sneak up to the letterbox; it was just too much out in the open, and too close to her car, for her not to. But what else could it have been?

A quote floated into her mind, spoken by Sherlock Holmes as penned by Arthur Conan Doyle:_ when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth_. If she had been in full view of the letterbox the entire time, and no one could have approached the cottage to replace her note, that really only left one option, inconceivable as it was. It meant that Leo Fitz really _had _been telling the truth, and he was in the past. The letterbox was some sort of time-traveling gate through which they were exchanging letters.

It left Jemma feeling a little faint, and put her off what remained of her chips. It was utter madness. But the evidence had been right in front of her, had it not? An impossible message from the past. And even he had acknowledged how far-fetched it was: he'd called it impossible as well, breaking all the laws of physics.

She had no idea what to do, how to feel about it, or how she should respond. _If _she should respond, for that matter. Meddling with time hadn't turned out too well in any of the sci-fi media she'd consumed. But she couldn't deny that the part of her that was ever-curious and loved learning and discovering new things was tempted by the opportunity presented to her.

As the weekend ended and she resumed her weekly schedule of lectures, experiments, and careful research, Jemma continued to stew over the question of the letterbox and eventually concluded that she had a unique circumstance in front of her. It was true that Leo Fitz wasn't in the distant past, but it was still her past, and being able to talk to him through an exchange of letters was an unprecedented opportunity for science. Maybe she could test his letters in the lab to see if they held any sort of extraordinary properties as a result of traveling through time. Perhaps together, they could discover why the letterbox was acting as a portal through time. He'd mentioned physics, after all. Maybe he was scientifically-minded, too. They could work as a team.

And, Jemma reminded herself, he'd been much kinder to her in his later messages, when it seemed he'd realized what was happening and stopped trying to antagonize her. She could do the same. Maybe it would do them both some good if she took the time to introduce herself properly, as best she could through their limited means of communication. If they were going to keep up a correspondence, it might go better if they felt like they had a sense of connection with each other.

If she could even manage that, she thought ruefully to herself. She could barely manage to make meaningful connections in her day-to-day life as it was, Bobbi excluded. Will was a glaring example of that.

But she felt determined to make an effort with her new, strange pen pal at least, so on her breaks during the week or whenever she could scrape together a few minutes of peace, Jemma worked on a new letter. She treated it like she would a letter to any new friend or someone she was just getting to know: she told a little about herself, what she did. Then she asked about him. She hoped that with a few direct questions, Leo Fitz would be more willing to answer her in kind.

Jemma returned to the cottage the next weekend feeling cautiously optimistic about the whole thing, and more receptive to whatever the letterbox might have in store for her. She was a little disappointed to find it empty, but she had expected it, since she'd not written him back. But she slipped her letter in with a smile, and returned to her car with a sense of hope. She had_ Incomplete Nature _and a travel mug of tea to keep her occupied until she heard the letterbox rattle again. If Leo Fitz was around on his end, it might take him awhile to reply to her letter, and she was willing to wait.

-:-

Seven days after his last note from Jemma Simmons, Fitz ate his breakfast with a certain amount of eager anticipation. If she kept to her regular schedule, she would send him another letter today-assuming she wrote back at all, that was. He was still worried about her sudden silence the week before, but he felt reasonably confident that she would eventually reply. He knew if he had access to something that could send letters and notes through time, he would be itching to play with it (and he was).

The bright sunshine reflected his cheerful mood as he headed outside through the conservatory, making his way to the letterbox. He'd already told himself not to get his hopes up too much in case it was empty, but it was too late for that. Fortunately, when he looked inside, he was pleased to find a letter-and not just a short note like they'd been exchanging, but a real, proper, long letter. Fitz looked over the pages Jemma had written with a wide grin on his face, thrilled with his bounty, before hurrying back inside.

He immediately reached for his mug of tea as he settled down at his drafting table to read the letter.

_Dear Mr. Fitz, _it read. _(Or can I call you Leo?) _

Fitz cringed, though she couldn't be faulted for not knowing he hated his first name. He would have to correct her.

_I feel like I owe you an apology. I didn't think you were telling me the truth about where you were. I thought you were just a local having a laugh at my expense. Can you really blame me, though? _

He smiled. No, he couldn't. He'd thought she'd been taking the piss too, at first.

_So now I feel proper introductions are in order, if we're going to be writing each other regularly. You already know my name and that I live in Glasgow, but I thought I might tell you a little more about myself. I'm originally from Sheffield, and I came to Glasgow after getting my degrees to lecture chemistry at a university in the city. _

He raised an eyebrow. So Jemma was a scientist then, like himself. And she was obviously an intelligent one, too, if she had more than one degree to her name. That had the potential to make things infinitely more interesting.

_When I'm not lecturing or tutoring students, I'm working on my second book in the hopes that I can publish soon and make Reader. I won't bore you with the topic of my research, but I'm convinced it will have exciting applications for my field and beyond. _

Fitz snorted softly, smiling to himself. There was very little about the sciences that bored him, even outside his areas of expertise. He could tell she was likely trying to defer in case he didn't give a whit about science or research, but he already wanted to ask what she was working on.

_The idea of having a pen pal from the past is a little daunting, but also thrilling. I'd like to know more about you, if you're willing to share. And who knows-maybe together, we can find out why our letterbox is so special. If not, at least we'll have someone we can write to. I'm looking forward to hearing back from you. All the best, Jemma. _

Fitz tapped his fingers against his mug, trying to decide where he wanted to start with his reply. Following her format would probably be best, and he didn't want to ramble and go on too long-he wanted to get a response to her soon, before she left. With that in mind, he set his tea aside, pulled his notepad out from underneath his design sketches, and got to work.

-:-

Jemma was just finishing chapter eight of her book when she heard the letterbox rattle. She looked up with a smile, lifting a hand to shade her eyes from the sun, then placed a bookmark between the pages of her book and set it down on the passenger seat. When she pulled Leo Fitz's reply from the letterbox, she was happy to see that it was a letter similar in length to her own. Stepping off the stoop, she leaned against the hood of her car to read what he'd written.

_Jemma-  
Call me Fitz, please. No one but my mum calls me Leo. It's short for Leopold. I've never liked it. _

She smiled. She thought Leo was a nice name, actually, but she could call him whatever he preferred. _Fitz _. Sounding it out in her head, it seemed fitting for him, somehow.

_It was good to read that you're a scientist like me. I'm in engineering. I work for a R&D lab that specializes in government contracts, so most of what I do is pretty hush-hush, as you can imagine. I wouldn't mind hearing a little more about what you're working on, though. _

So she'd been right-he _was _a scientist. The knowledge that she might have found a kindred spirit settled warm in Jemma's chest, and her smile widened as she kept reading.

_If you think talking to someone in the past is strange, imagine how I feel! You already know everything about my world, but I don't know anything about yours. It's a good thing time is fixed, or else I'd be afraid of one of us mucking up the timeline. _

Jemma laughed. He was acting as if the world could have changed unrecognizably in the intervening two years, though he had a point. Her world _was _an unknown to him, in some respects: scientific advancements, world conflicts, films, music, books, and more, from the grandiose all the way down to the mundane, that had yet to happen for him but which she already knew of. She would have to be careful what she told him-they disagreed on how time worked, obviously, but that didn't have to be a bad thing.

_I thought about bringing some equipment from the lab to test the letterbox with but I couldn't come up with a good enough excuse to get them past my boss. So I'm afraid it's just us and what we can come up with for now. Unless you've got anything on your end. I'm open to any theories. - Fitz. _

Definitely a kindred spirit then, if he was thinking about running tests on the letterbox. Any scientist worth their salt would at least consider it.

Jemma looked over his letter as a whole and smiled again. Fitz seemed like a nice enough man, intelligent, and as far as writing partners went, she could have a done a lot worse. Feeling very optimistic, she pushed off the hood of her car to go around to the open driver's side door and pull her notebook from her bag. She was already thinking through how she wanted to reply, what she wanted to address first.

-:-

Fitz was sitting on the front stoop with his sketchpad in his lap, refining a design for a project he was hoping to propose to his supervisors soon. He was so engrossed in it that he almost missed the sound of a letter dropping into the box behind him. He jumped, startled, but as soon as he realized that Jemma had sent a new reply, he quickly set his sketchpad and pencil aside and stood to reach eagerly into the letterbox. When he read her message, his excitement only grew.

_I can't tell you what a relief it was to read that you're a scientist too. Having a like-minded person to share this puzzle with will make things easier, I think. Now I know we can talk theories about how this is happening without going over each other's heads-hopefully. I confess that physics isn't my specialty, but I get the feeling I'll be doing some reading on it soon enough. And I disagree with you on how time works-I think that it's fluid, and it's probably a good thing I only told you about the weather. Think of the damage I could have done if I'd told you something of consequence! Not that I think you would use anything I tell you for your own gain. Would you? _

He could talk science with her. That alone had him brimming with hopeful enthusiasm. There wasn't anyone at the lab who could keep up with him when he got deep into a subject he was interested in, and Hunter, much as he loved him, had barely passed his A levels. The possibility that Jemma could understand him, and her obvious excitement at being able to talk to him as well, sparked something in his chest that he couldn't quite identify.

And a benefit to communicating through letters, he thought a little ruefully to himself, was that Jemma would never have to hear him stumble over his words.

Picking up his sketchpad and balancing it on his knee, Fitz set her letter on top of it and started writing a response below hers.

-:-

Jemma only had to wait a few minutes before the letterbox rattled again, and she reached inside with a grin on her face. When she pulled out her letter with a new addition to the bottom, her eyes lit up as they eagerly took in Fitz's words.

_I would never use this for personal gain! Who do you take me for? Honestly a bit insulted that you think I would.  
I'm kidding. _

She laughed. They were just written words, but she could almost see the faux righteous indignation leaping off the page.

_I know I said I'm an engineer, but I know a fair bit about physics. As best I can tell, it's some kind of traversable wormhole, but it still doesn't make any sense even within the bounds of quantum theory. For something like this to be possible, it would require large amounts of exotic matter-dark matter, negative mass, things like that-and some type of mechanism to accelerate the two ends of the wormhole. Which, obviously, the letterbox doesn't have. And even if it did, current prevailing theory says that a wormhole like this wouldn't be stable enough to last long without collapsing, much less be able to handle sending letters back and forth for weeks like we have. So yeah, I'm clueless. Maybe it's just a magic letterbox. _

Jemma laughed again, her eyes sparkling. "Magic is just science that we don't understand yet," she said softly. "But you're giving it your best shot." She didn't know how to express the happiness she felt at seeing Fitz's written words, at how he was trying to suss out the puzzle of their letterbox with science and reasoning. It was truly the best thing that could have happened to her, and something she couldn't have anticipated.

_If you're interested in doing some reading, I suggest looking into traversable wormholes in particular, the Casimir effect, exotic matter, or even just brushing up on the theory of relativity. Let me know if you have any questions. _

She sat down on the stoop to pick up her notebook and jot down the subjects he'd mentioned. She was sure she would have plenty of questions for him once she did some reading, but for now, she was curious and eager to learn more about him, this surprisingly brilliant man she'd managed to find through a letterbox.

-:-

_Thank you very much for your suggestions. I'll head to the library at the first opportunity I get. Do expect lots of questions next week. _

Fitz couldn't explain the way his heart leapt in his chest. _Next week. _That meant Jemma was definitely interested in coming back and writing to him. He couldn't have wiped the smile off his face if he'd tried.

_Since we can't progress any further in our investigation for the moment, I'd like to know a little more about you again, if that's alright. I know you said you can't tell me much about your job, but what brought you to the cottage? Do you work in Perth or Glasgow? Unless there's some top-secret R&D facility in Perthshire that I'm not meant to know about. _

He tapped his pen against the paper as he contemplated how to answer her. He was still coming to grips with how his injury was affecting him and didn't like discussing it much, but he felt oddly comfortable telling Jemma, as long as he wasn't too specific. She didn't need to know the gritty details, and he wasn't interested in pity. Still, he had to take a deep breath before he started writing.

_I had an accident last year and was injured pretty badly. Thought it might help if I got away from the city, so I moved here. I do still work in Glasgow, but I only have to go in a couple of days a week. The rest I just work from home and do video calls. _

Jemma pursed her lips as she felt a pang of sympathy for him. A part of her wanted to ask Fitz what had happened, but she didn't want to pry. Instead, she decided to focus on something positive.

_I'm sorry you were hurt. Has the cottage been helping? When I lived there, I found it to be very peaceful and quiet. I loved it. If that's the sort of thing you were after, I mean. _

Fitz breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he saw her reply, thankful she didn't fuss over him or ask more about it. In fact, her answer even made him smile a little.

_It's helped a lot, I think. I've only been here a couple of months but it's been nice. Very quiet, like you said. If you loved it so much, why did you leave? If you don't mind me asking. _

Jemma winced slightly as she started writing on a fresh sheet of paper, the page they'd filled sitting on the stoop next to her. Fitz wouldn't be interested in the gory details of her breakup, so she would just gloss over it.

_I lived here with my boyfriend, but we broke up. Then our lease was up and it didn't make sense for me to live here alone while commuting to Glasgow for work every day, so I just decided to move back. I miss the cottage, but it's better this way, really. _

Fitz's reply was very quick in coming back, and Jemma stifled a short laugh when she read it. It oozed uncertainty.

_I'm sorry. Bad breakup? _

She grinned as she quickly wrote her reply.

_I'm better off without him. He was an arse. _

Fitz laughed. Feeling a bit bold, he dashed off a response before he could overthink it and slipped it into the letterbox.

_Happily single then, are you? _

Jemma laughed again, her nose scrunching up, and vaguely wondered if she was flirting with a man from the past via quickly-sent letters. She immediately shrugged off the thought-they were just getting to know each other, that was all, and asking the type of questions any new friends might.

_Yes, very happily single. _But she still hesitated before finishing her reply. _What about you? Any ladies, men, or otherwise in your life? _

Fitz snorted. He could already imagine the things Hunter would say if he were witness to this lightning back-and-forth exchange of notes.

_None. I'm tragically single, according to my friends. I don't mind it though. _

He didn't bother saying that was because he'd yet to find a woman interesting enough to bother with pursuing. Jemma didn't need to know that.

Glancing up at the sun in the sky, he moved to check the time on his phone and winced. Then he started to add an addition to his reply.

_As much as I would like to stay and chat, I actually need to go get ready for one of those video calls I was telling you about. It's in 15 minutes. But thank you for talking. If that's what this can even be called. _

Jemma's stomach dropped a little when she read his note, disappointed that their conversation was coming to an end. She'd genuinely enjoyed it, even if it was slightly ridiculous to stand waiting impatiently in front of a letterbox for a letter to come through, quickly reading it, just as quickly scribbling a reply, and throwing it back in the letterbox. It was a good thing no one was around to witness it. Biting her lip, she started to write.

_I understand. It was nice to speak to you too. Good luck with your video call, and I hope you have a nice week. _

She frowned. Was that too cheesy? Too rote? How did one sign off on a conversation like this? Before she could second-guess herself too much, she put it in the letterbox.

_Thanks. I hope you have a good week too. Don't forget to read up on quantum theory. I'll 'see' you next week. _

Feeling like that was safe and pleasant and not overly eager, Fitz slipped it into the letterbox and bent to pick up his phone. He had just had one of the strangest hours of his life, but he didn't feel concerned or upset about it. Rather, he felt happy, light, better than he had in weeks, and he turned to head for the conservatory with a smile. He had a lot to do in the coming week for work, but he found that he was already looking forward to the next time he could talk to Jemma, and hopefully answer any questions she had about wormholes and discuss how their letterbox worked. And, beyond that, anything else she might want to talk about.

-:-

Jemma read Fitz's last note with a curious warmth in her chest. Definite confirmation that he wanted to keep talking to her-she would have to do her best to make it back out to the cottage, like she'd managed to do for the last few weeks. She was eager to discuss physics with him and how the letterbox might work, but more than that, she didn't want to disappoint him. She looked over the few pages' worth of notes they'd accumulated over the course of their conversation and very carefully pressed them between the sheets of her notebook. She would have to take care of them, since she didn't have any other way of connecting with Fitz.

She went back to her car with a smile, intent on making some time in her schedule that week to do some of his suggested reading so she could come back prepared. She felt like she'd gained a very unique, interesting friend, and she couldn't wait to talk to him again.


	4. Chapter 4

Over the next several weeks, Jemma made a point to visit the cottage every Saturday, eager to keep up her new correspondence with Fitz. She found that he was extremely easy to talk to, on just about every subject imaginable. She could debate science with him, they could discuss articles and papers-only ones he had access to in his time, of course. She could complain about how slow her research was coming along, and he would encourage her to keep going. He could tell her what he could about what he was designing for work without breaking his nondisclosure agreements, and she would excitedly theorize on how they could be applied to her field.

Talking to Fitz was quickly becoming her favorite part of the week. Whether they were trading long letters that rambled on and on about the details of what they were working on or what they had done that week, or short, quick notes thrown back and forth in spirited discourse, it was _exciting_. Fitz kept her interest like no one ever had before. He was deeply intelligent with a dry, cutting sense of humor that made her laugh, and his questions actually made her think.

Waking up on Saturday mornings became a treat. She would pack up her laptop and research notes, grab a mug of tea, and set off for the countryside with a smile on her face, looking forward to seeing a new letter from Fitz. Even if they never managed to figure out how their letterbox worked, she was glad for it, because it meant she'd been connected with one of the best people she knew.

-:-

Wednesdays were the best day of the week, as far as Fitz was concerned. Wednesdays meant letters from Jemma. He was very glad it wasn't one of the days he had to go into the lab, because it meant he could take some of his work outside and wait for Jemma's letters to come through. Sometimes he had to take breaks to go inside for video calls, or the weather kept him indoors, but he braved it regularly to check for updates. Jemma always sent her first letter around mid-morning, and usually stayed through the late afternoon. Occasionally he wondered what she was cutting out of her schedule to come and spend the day exchanging notes with him-at first he thought she was coming to the cottage during the week, until he realized that she was exactly two years ahead of him, and that her dates fell on a different day of the week from him. But whatever she was skipping, he was glad she did. She was the first person he'd ever met who could keep up with him on an intellectual level, even if the process was slowed somewhat through the letterbox. She met all of his ramblings and questions with more questions of her own, but hers were insightful, and he found that he didn't mind explaining things if Jemma was the audience.

He even began to discuss some of his projects with her. Not all of Fitz's work was for SciTech; in his free time, he tooled away on designs he either wanted to submit to the lab for consideration, or that he planned to try and patent. He was currently refining designs for some non-lethal weaponry, an idea he'd had for a long while but just hadn't had the time to dedicate himself to properly. His sketches for the pistol and the rifle he'd dreamed up were coming along well, but they wouldn't be complete until he finalized the design for the bullet casing. And _that _was dependent on what he used for the paralyzing agent, which was where he had run into problems. In his cursory research into the subject, none of the widely available or commonly-used neurotoxins would work for his design. Either they were too weak at the dosage the bullet could hold, or too strong and risked doing harm to the target.

It was a good thing, Fitz thought, that he had Jemma's brain to pick now. She knew biochemistry; maybe she could help.

_I've run into a snag on a project I'm working on_, he wrote her one morning. _I'm hoping that you'll be able (willing?) to help me _.

_I thought you weren't allowed to tell me anything about your work_, she wrote back. _Because it's all very secret MI-6 James Bond Q-type things. _

Fitz rolled his eyes. She was teasing him and he knew it. He adjusted his notepad on his knees before starting to write. _This is a personal project. I'm working on a non-lethal handgun design and I'm having trouble deciding what would be the most effective paralyzing agent. The numbers just aren't working out. I could really use a biochemist's eye on this. _

When her reply came through, he couldn't help but laugh at it. _Are you sure I should help? For all I know, giving you the information required to finish your design could rewrite time. _

_Time is fixed_, he reminded her. _If there are military and police forces running around in your time with stun guns, you're going to help me because you already have. Sort of like a time loop. _

_Aha, well, there are no stun guns in my time_, Jemma wrote back. If smugness could be conveyed through the written word, she managed it. _At least not that I know of. So maybe I'll choose not to meddle with time and keep history intact. _

Fitz frowned slightly. While he acknowledged that there were some advantages to communicating through letters only, there were definite cons, too-he couldn't see her facial expression or hear her tone to go along with her words, and so he couldn't tell if Jemma was still teasing him or actually being serious. He _thought _she was kidding with him, but he couldn't be sure. He knew he would keep working on the design if she refused to help, but he wouldn't lie to himself-it would hurt a bit.

And then there was the fact that she'd said there weren't any of his guns in use in her time. Maybe he was still fine-tuning the design two years in the future, or he'd turned it over to SciTech and they'd labeled it classified for special use.

He was still deliberating on his response when the letterbox rattled again. Taking out the new piece of paper he found inside, he unfolded it, curious to see what Jemma had wanted to add without waiting for a reply from him.

_You're in luck. Amazingly enough, the research I'm doing for my next book is all about the different possible applications of dendrotoxins, some of which I think might be rather useful to you. If you're willing to send me some of the specs on your design, I'll see what I can do to help. _

There was a small smiley face drawn at the end of her note. His shoulders relaxed; of course she would be willing to help him. He shouldn't have doubted her. He went through the notes and sketches of the gun design he had outside with him and selected a few to send through the letterbox to her, along with a note detailing his issues and a gentle reminder to please send everything back once she was done.

Jemma quickly sent another short note through saying she'd received his package, and from there they delved deep into discussion on how Fitz might be able to apply dendrotoxin to his design and come up with a successful solution. He wouldn't be able to know for sure until he could run the numbers in a simulation, but it looked very promising, and not for the first time he was very glad that Jemma had come into his life.

For it wasn't just science and work that they talked about; their conversations began to turn personal in nature, too. They discovered that they were the same age, in real time-Jemma of course had two years on him in her time-and that they were both only children. Jemma was a morning person, while Fitz liked to sleep in. He let slip that he had a dangerous sweet tooth, and she responded that she was very much in favor of healthy eating and exercise, which he scoffed at. They both enjoyed nature documentaries, though Jemma had a soft spot for the Great British Bake-Off that Fitz didn't share.

_My mum watches it, but I don't, _he wrote.

_I thought you'd love something like that, _Jemma wrote back. _Seeing the sweets they bake, and all. _

Fitz grinned as he hastily scribbled his reply._ That's just it. Everything looks so delicious and I can't eat it. It makes me hungry at night when it's too late to do anything about it. _

He felt he knew her well enough by then to know that she would laugh at him for that. He could almost see the way her eyes might crinkle up at the corners and how her lips would spread wide in a smile-because his curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he'd run a search on Jemma's name online. He'd found a result for her on the University of Glasgow's School of Chemistry faculty page, and when he'd seen the small black-and-white photo next to her name, he'd sucked in a quiet breath.

Jemma was much closer to the nubile lab assistant Hunter had teased him about, and not at all the plain Jane Fitz had assumed her to be. She had dark hair that fell in soft waves to just above her shoulders, fine, delicate features, and a smile that made him feel lighter just for having seen it. She was, as his mother would say, a quintessential English rose.

Seeing her picture had made his insecurity flare up briefly-attractive women did not normally give him the time of day, and if for some reason Jemma ever came across him in her time, or discovered what he looked like, she'd surely ditch him in a heartbeat-but he managed to douse it out. One of the advantages to communicating the way they did was that their relationship was a true meeting of the minds; there was nothing superficial about it. He could reassure himself that Jemma wasn't the type of person to be so shallow, and that she genuinely enjoyed talking to him on his own merit. If she _had _done the same as him and looked him up, she either didn't find him hideous, or didn't care.

No, Jemma had proven herself to be a good friend-maybe even his best friend. Fitz enjoyed talking to her more than he did anyone else, even Hunter, and he never had to worry that she was comparing him to the man he'd been before his accident. He felt completely at ease when he was writing to her and able just to be himself in ways he didn't feel comfortable doing with other people. He found himself wishing more and more that he could see her in person, just once, just to hear her voice and speak properly to her, but understood that it simply wasn't possible. He was trapped in her past. He would just have to content himself with her letters.

Except, one Wednesday, Jemma's morning letter didn't come. Fitz frowned when he found the letterbox empty, but tried not to think too much about it; maybe she had just gotten a late start and her letter would arrive shortly. He checked a few more times over the course of the morning with no result, and by the time he'd finished his lunch, he was fighting the urge to pace.

He knew he was probably being a worrywart and unreasonable. They had no standing agreement to meet every week and Jemma had no obligation to him. She was free to use her time however she wished. It was just that he'd grown used to the routine they'd established over the past several weeks; he looked forward to Wednesdays now, and without their morning exchange of letters, he found himself missing her.

Suddenly, Fitz hated that they could only communicate through the letterbox, and he wished he could call or text like a normal friend. Not knowing why Jemma wasn't there, and being completely unable to contact her, left him feeling impotent and frustrated. His mind was conjuring up worst-case scenarios-what if she'd had an accident?-but most likely it was something completely benign. Maybe she'd just found something better to do. Maybe she had a date.

He didn't really want to examine the sour sort of jealousy that churned his stomach at the thought of Jemma out with someone else.

Fitz went about his day like he normally did, working on his projects for the lab, and when the sun began to sink low in the sky and he still hadn't received a letter from Jemma, he accepted that he wouldn't be hearing from her at all that day. He was disappointed, but there was nothing he could do about it. Without the ability to reach her any other way, he could only hope that she was fine and that she would come back in a week, ready and eager to resume their unconventional friendship.

-:-

The truth was that Jemma had become entrenched in a testing phase of her research. With students out for the summer, it meant she had no teaching duties scheduled and could spend full days in the lab running more time-sensitive experiments, documenting how long it took mammalian cells to recover from paralysis from various dosages of dendrotoxin. Unfortunately, the nature of her experiments required long hours in the lab and so meant she couldn't justify taking any time away until they were completed, even on the weekend. When she realized that she would have to miss her weekly meetup with Fitz, she'd felt horribly guilty, especially knowing she had no way of telling him. What would he think when his letterbox stayed empty?

Not much at all, possibly. Fitz was a brilliant man and probably had more than enough going on to keep him occupied in her absence. And one week away wasn't so terrible, really. He might not even mind the break.

Still, Jemma had an apology written and ready to deposit in the letterbox when she arrived at the cottage the next Saturday.

_I'm sorry for missing last week. I was overwhelmingly busy with my research and some experiments I was running and couldn't be away from the lab for very long. I did miss our conversation, though. You would have been very welcome company while I was working. _

She hoped she wasn't being too transparently needy, but it was the truth. Outside of Bobbi, Fitz was now her favorite person to talk to, if what they did could even be considered 'talking'. She really had missed him, and had woken up that morning even more excited than usual to drive out to the country.

For his part, Fitz found Jemma's letter with a sigh of relief. It felt like a weight had lifted off his heart. He knew he'd been silly to worry and that she'd had a perfectly good reason not to be there, and this proved it. Her saying she'd missed him put a smile on his face. It made him feel a little less unrequited in having missed her, too.

He sat down on the stoop and thought for a moment about how honest he wanted to be with his reply. They were friends, yes, but declaring that sort of attachment was a level of vulnerability he wasn't used to.

_Glad to hear from you. I wondered where you were. _His pen hesitated over the paper. _Thought maybe you'd forgotten about me _.

Jemma scoffed as she read his note, and immediately sat down to pen her response.

_As if I could forget about you! _

Fitz's smile widened, and he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand as he kept reading:

_It was just work taking over, I promise. I'm sure you know what it's like to get so caught up in a project that everything else sort of falls to the wayside. _

He did, but something about it didn't sit quite right in his mind. He tapped his pen against the paper for a moment.

_Isn't term over? Shouldn't you be on holiday or something right now? _

Jemma frowned. Holiday? Who had time to go on holiday when there was so much else to be done?

_Yes, term is over and there's another week before the graduate students begin their summer research projects_, she wrote. _But knowledge waits for no one, Fitz. This is the perfect time for me to try and get ahead on my research, when I don't have lectures to prepare and marking to worry about. I'll never make Reader if I don't put in the work and finish my book. Don't you want to advance in your career? _

Fitz shook his head, knowing what he wanted to say the instant he finished reading her reply.

_Of course I do, but over the past year I've learned the value of rest. A bit against my will, but I have. _

That made Jemma sit back, feeling a faint wash of guilt. Despite their growing friendship, Fitz didn't talk about his accident much; all she knew was that it had been a car crash in which he'd sustained a brain injury and a broken arm. She'd done a little reading up on brain trauma and found that the effects could be wide-ranging, and her heart had gone out to him. If his injury had been severe enough to prompt a move away from the city, he must have been struggling badly. But she'd suspected that FItz wouldn't react well to anything resembling pity, so she'd never brought it up with him.

Here, she thought she knew what he was trying to get at, and so she sighed, looking out at the garden as she thought about how she wanted to word her response, how much of herself she wanted to reveal. In the end, she decided she trusted Fitz enough to be honest.

_I'm a workaholic. I can admit that. When I was still in school, I was always driven to work hard and succeed because I was so much younger than my peers. I felt like I needed to prove myself, to meet everyone's expectations. Anything other than coming out on top was abject failure. Now… well, now I suppose I keep at it just to stay busy. _Jemma wiggled her pen in her hand for a moment. _I've never had much success at making and keeping friends, and if I'm busy with my work, I can't think about how _

She wiggled her pen again.

_lonely I am. I do have one good friend I keep up with, and she's lovely, but I still don't get out very much. I've lived in and around Glasgow for a few years now and sometimes I still feel like a stranger here. _

It was Fitz's turn to frown. He hadn't expected such candor from her and realized their conversation had turned a little more serious than he'd intended. He wanted to bring a little levity back and hopefully cheer her up at the same time. He knew all too well the pitfalls of throwing himself single-mindedly into his work and how other aspects of his life could suffer as a result. But how could he help her? Once again, he found himself bemoaning the limitations of their communication.

He grumbled to himself, and even got up to go inside and make himself some tea while he thought on the problem. He was stirring a large spoonful of sugar into his mug when his mind suddenly struck upon a solution, and he felt so clever, so eager to get back to Jemma, that he abandoned his drink to hurry outside and write to her.

Jemma, meanwhile, was worrying that she'd made a mistake in being so open, and that Fitz didn't want to hear about the sorry state of her social life. It had been an unusually long time since she'd sent her note through, longer than it normally took for him to reply-even a long one. She was just thinking about sending another note, apologizing for being so serious, when the letterbox rattled. She jumped, but quickly breathed a sigh of relief and stood to retrieve Fitz's reply.

_Trust me when I say I know what it's like to have no social life_, it said. _But I've had an idea. You said you feel like a stranger here, so I thought of a way to get you out of the lab for a while to relax and hopefully have some fun. You can go for a walk with me in the city. _

Jemma blinked. What? That was impossible. Unless he was suggesting an attempt to meet up with her somehow in her present, an idea which made her stomach do a little flip. Slightly breathless, she grabbed her notebook so she could write back.

_How? It's not possible. I can't go back to the past. _

Fitz's next reply came through much more quickly than his last. _I know. But I've got it all figured out. Give me two days to get some things together and I can take you on a tour of Glasgow by proxy. I was born and raised there, so I know where to send you so you'll feel like you've actually been through the city. It'll be fun. _

Jemma stared down at his letter, a curious warmth lighting in her chest. Her eyes lingered over his words on the page, the slant to the letters and the places his pen had pressed down harder on the paper. A small smile broke over her face, and she picked up her own pen.

_That's very sweet of you. But I don't want you to have to go to any trouble. _

The next note that came through only made her smile grow. _It's no trouble. It's your summer holiday. You deserve it. _

Jemma was so intrigued by Fitz's offer that she made the time to drive back out to the cottage after she'd finished her last lecture on Monday afternoon. True to his word, when she reached into the letterbox, she pulled out a map of Glasgow's city centre along with a few pages' worth of notes from him. Looking at the map, it had several locations circled with numbers, and lines drawn with arrows indicating the path she should take around the city. His notes turned out to be a legend he'd written for the map, detailing the locations he was sending her to and his own commentary on each of them.

It made that warmth burn in her heart again, leaving her feeling light and happy. Fitz had obviously put a lot of thought into it, and the care that shone through made her feel appreciated in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. She dashed off a quick note to let him know she'd received his package and planned on taking her tour that weekend.

On Saturday morning, Jemma woke up and ate a light breakfast before dressing in capris and a sleeveless blouse with sensible shoes before heading for the metro to ride further into the city. She had Fitz's map and legend tucked safely away in her small crossbody bag and was eager to see what all he had to show her. She'd restrained herself from looking everything up online first, wanting to preserve the surprise and not let Fitz's work go to waste.

Her first stop was the Necropolis, a large Victorian cemetery located behind Glasgow Cathedral. As she crossed over the bridge that led onto the grounds, she paused to read Fitz's notes.

_Yes, I've brought you to a graveyard. A little morbid maybe, I know. But there's a lot of history here if you're interested in that sort of thing. We came here on a tour when I was in school, before I got skipped ahead. There's lots of famous Glaswegians and important Scottish historical figures buried here, and the view of the city from the top of the hill is nice. _

Jemma laughed quietly, then looked up at the cemetery rising before her before pocketing her notes.

She took her time wandering the paths that circled up around the hill, taking in all of the weathered stone monuments laid out in rows around her. Some of them were plain, but most of them were extremely ornate, and she found herself stepping in as close as she could to see who had been given such impressive memorials. There was the mausoleum of Major Archibald Douglas Monteath, a rather impressive octagonal stone structure with an ornate door that dwarfed the other monuments around around it. James Dunlop had an imposing tiered monument that looked more like a Roman temple facade than gravestone. Charles Tennant had a statue of himself seated atop his granite slab tomb.

Jemma kept her phone out as she walked along the cherry tree-lined paths, running searches on people and reading a little about each interesting gravestone she came across. She wondered, if Fitz were there with her, if he'd be chattering away about Scottish history. Surely he'd make it interesting and fun, unlike Will, who somehow had the capacity to make even the most interesting historical subject sound flat and boring. She shook her head to clear it. This outing was about letting Fitz lead her around to experience Glasgow, not dwelling on the lesser qualities of her ex-boyfriend.

When she reached the summit and the tall column paying respects to John Knox, Jemma took a seat in the grass and looked out at the view Fitz had promised. It really was lovely, being able to see the entire city spread out down below her, past the brewery stacks spitting smoke right at the foot of the cemetery to out beyond the river that ran through the city centre. The cathedral sat to her west, its copper roof shining in the late morning sunlight. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be there on a school trip as a young child, precocious as she and Fitz had been, and decided she probably would have been more interested in the lichen growing on some of the tombstones than any lecture their teacher might have been giving. Imagining Fitz being similarly otherwise occupied brought a smile to her face.

The next stop on her tour was the cathedral itself. She'd walked down the brick-paved lane next to it to get to the Necropolis, but now she'd come back around to the front by Cathedral Square to go inside. She looked up at it as she approached, taking in the dark stone edifice and tall windows, then took out her notes again.

_More history for you. According to what I've read, this is the only medieval cathedral in Scotland to survive the Reformation. I came here on a tour too when I was young, but I didn't appreciate it as much then as I do now. As an engineer, I really respect the design and innovation that went into constructing these churches hundreds of years ago. Truly a marvel. I don't know if you're religious-I'm not, not really-but my mum raised me going to church and there's just something about these big old buildings that always makes me feel a bit peaceful inside. _

Jemma wasn't religious in the slightest, but she could recognize beautiful architecture when she saw it. Coming into the nave, looking up at the columns that rose to the arches and even further up to the vaulted ceiling, she felt a sense of wonder settle over her. Sunlight shone through the stained glass windows, bits of color dappling the wooden pews and the stone floor, and there was a reverent stillness to the air that made her move slowly, with care. Looking around, she saw a few people scattered across the pews up near the front, heads bowed in thought or prayer, and a small group of people taking a guided tour near the choir.

Once again, she imagined Fitz beside her. She had no idea what he looked like-she hadn't summoned up the nerve to search for him online yet-but she imagined someone taller than her, lanky, glasses maybe, dark or fair hair (it didn't matter which), eyes that lit up when he got to talking about something that interested him. It was easy to think of him leaning in and talking to her in hushed tones about the particulars of cathedral construction. It made her heart pang softly, wishing he were actually there with her, but his notes were more than enough to pretend that he was.

When she'd seen her fill of the cathedral, Jemma left and, following Fitz's directions on the map, walked past the Royal Infirmary to High Street and started heading south. The road was busy and the pavement was full of pedestrians, so she kept a good pace as it wound through Victorian tenements on one side and newer developments on the other, all with shops lining the street on the ground floor. As the road straightened out and began to slope gently downward, Jemma could see her next destination before she reached it.

_More architecture. Are you tired of landmarks yet? I know, this is all very tourist-y_, Fitz's notes said. _That tower you see in the middle of the road is called the Tolbooth Steeple. Not as old as the Cathedral, but still pretty old. _

Jemma stopped outside a restaurant on the corner of the busy intersection, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sun's glare as she looked up at the Steeple. It was a tall, square stone tower with small spires on the steepled roof and a clock on each of the four faces. She found it rather unremarkable aside from its age, and it looked almost strange standing alone in the middle of a crowded street with modern vehicles rushing around it. She looked back down at Fitz's notes.

_If you want more morbid history, this is where they used to hold public hangings. _

That got a laugh out of her-she could almost hear the dry sort of tone she'd expect Fitz to say that in. A passing pedestrian gave her an odd look, so she smothered her amusement behind one hand and switched her notes out for her map, looking for where to go next.

Fitz's directions had her turning east, walking under a railway bridge and past a small park to a section of town that looked more working-class. Keeping an eye on the map, Jemma made a turn shortly past the park and kept walking, crossing another busy road until she came to some narrower roads that bordered a very large, green park, stretching out almost as far as she could see. She consulted Fitz's notes again.

_Welcome to Glasgow Green_, they said. _It's the oldest park in the city. Lots of music festivals and fairs and things are held here, not that I've ever been to any. If you head for the center, there's a large building you won't be able to miss. That's the People's Palace. My mum took me there a lot when I was young because it was free and it got me out of our flat. I thought it was bloody boring, but you might like it. There's a garden in the conservatory around the back that's nice, for you maybe, since you're into biology and all of that. _

Jemma smiled as she slipped her notes back into the front pocket of her bag and started walking. There were lots of cyclists and joggers out on the paths, and people spread out across the lawns: children laughing and kicking around balls or flying kites, and couples sunning themselves on blankets or having a picnic, all enjoying the beautiful weather. It all came together to create an almost festive atmosphere, and it put a spring in Jemma's step as she made her way across the park.

Fitz was right; she picked out the People's Palace with ease, sighting the large structure long before she reached it. It resembled a Victorian-era civic building, made out of reddish stone with an expansive glass conservatory extending from the back, just as he'd described. There was also a large, ornate fountain outside the front entrance, water burbling merrily from carved lions' heads down into the wide basin below. Jemma lingered there for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the fountain and watching sunlight dapple the water's surface in the basin, before heading inside.

There, she found a museum dedicated to the history of Glasgow and its people. Jemma could see how it wasn't exactly the most stultifying thing ever, but she appreciated that it was a look into the past and culture of the city that she lived in. She took her time going through the exhibits, once again imagining Fitz next to her, this time complaining about how bored he was and if they could leave soon.

When she made it to the conservatory, she found a quaint little café with tables spread out across the stone tiled floor. The garden was cultivated to look like a lush tropical jungle, with several tall palms rising to the high glass ceiling, and the air was humid. On impulse, Jemma took a selfie with the greenery in the background, in the vain hope that someday, somehow, she could show Fitz the photo.

After taking a few minutes to sit at one of the tables and rest, she took out her map and notes again to see what was next.

_If you want to go see the river, there's some paths that run along the south end of the park that have some nice views. But if you're ready for a break, follow the directions to number 6 on your map _.

Jemma winced. "Oops," she murmured. Perhaps she'd sat down a bit too early. She peered at the map, following the arrows Fitz had drawn along the streets, to the circled number 6. The location looked like a church. She turned back to his notes.

_No, I'm not taking you to another church. Not technically. There's actually a nice little café down in the basement that I've been to a few times with my mates. I think you've earned a break and a drink of your choice by now, so enjoy. _

She smiled. That was quite sweet and thoughtful of him, she thought, especially taking her to a place he'd been to before and enjoyed. She could obviously get a drink there at the café she was currently at, but she found the idea of taking advantage of his suggestion much more appealing. Standing, Jemma pocketed her notes and took up her map, eager to get to her next destination.

It didn't take her long to get there. The church the café was located under was old, built of yellowing stone with Roman columns in the front and a tall clock tower rising up from the gabled roof, ending in a thin spire. There was a sign for the café hanging from the low wrought-iron fence surrounding the church, showing the way to the entrance below ground level. Jemma went through the little gate and down around the ramp to go inside.

The café ended up being more of a brasserie, with a sleek bar carrying a wide assortment of drinks running along one wall, cozy booths lining the others, and tables scattered in between. But it looked inviting, and Jemma was immediately glad she'd come. Checking the time on her phone, she decided to get lunch there-Fitz had just recommended drinks, but surely he wouldn't steer her wrong on food, either.

A host showed her to a small table and let her with a menu, promising to come back in a moment to take her drink order. When Jemma opened the menu and got a look at the selections, she had to bite back an amused laugh. Everything just looked so _Scottish_, from the rumbledethumps to the haddock and potato soup to the stereotypical haggis, that it was no wonder Fitz had sent her there. Maybe he really was aiming to give her the true Glasgow experience.

She left forty-five minutes later, full on a glass of wine and a nice goat cheese salad, map back in hand and a fresh pep in her step. It was a bit of a longer walk this time, doubling back the way she'd come from the Steeple and going past it, down a new road. She took note of the shops and restaurants she passed as she went, and was glad for the fine weather; all the exercise she was getting by walking was good for her, and it did better to see the city this way rather than taking a bus.

Fifteen minutes and a few turns later, Jemma was standing outside the Gallery of Modern Art. She took out Fitz's notes again.

_You can't call yourself a Glaswegian of any sort if you haven't gazed upon the cone on the Duke of Wellington's head at least once. Proud part of our city's heritage, that is. _

Jemma snorted softly and looked up. In front of her was the tall statue of the Duke of Wellington astride his horse, with a bright orange and white road cone sitting at a jaunty angle over his head. Nearby, someone-likely a tourist-was having their picture taken in front of it. Thinking it couldn't hurt, she switched her phone over to selfie mode and took another photo of herself, making sure the statue, complete with cone, was visible in the background. It was something else she could hope to show Fitz one day, somehow.

_Okay, I have one more stop for you. Hopefully I haven't tired you out yet. _

She didn't have nearly as far to go this time, only one block. She found herself on a large square, mostly paved over but with squares and circles of grass here and there, lined with trees and benches. The square was crowded, people clumped in sporadic groups, walking through, or simply sitting on the benches.

_This is George Square. Full of tourists and all, but another important spot for the city. The city council used to host a really big Hogmanay party here that I would to come to, but they scrapped it a few years ago. Now I have no real reason to visit, but thought it was worth you stopping by. _

Jemma smiled at that, but her attention was caught by what Fitz had written next.

_Now, here's your reward! Like a scavenger hunt, but not really. Okay, it's not a reward, but-anyway, you'll see. Go to the end of the square by the City Chambers and find the benches across from the statue of James Oswald. _

She looked up and around. Going by common sense, the Chambers building was likely the large, ornate one on the far side of the square from where she was. She started walking, her chin held high, and kept an eye out for statues. When she arrived at the far end of the square, she saw that there were three of them, one on each corner and one in the middle, but only the corners had benches opposite. She went to the right first, and upon inspection, was pleased to find that she'd chosen correctly and had found the statue of James Oswald. She looked at Fitz's notes again.

_Go to the bench to the left of the waste bin and and reach underneath the edge of the seat. Should still be there. And, that brings me to the end of the tour. _

Intrigued, Jemma turned around and looked at the benches in front of her. There were five of them, two of the left of the waste bin. Hoping she was aiming for the correct side (and very glad no one was currently occupying it), she stuffed her notes back into her bag and went to sit down on the designated bench, right next to the waste bin. Then, feeling a little self-conscious and hoping no one noticed, she slowly leaned to the side in order to slip her hand beneath the seat of the bench and feel around.

After a few seconds of prodding, her fingers crinkled on something that felt like plastic, stuck to the underside of the seat. Glancing around again-no one was watching her-she fumbled for a good grip on it and tugged. The object came free, and when she pulled her hand back up, Jemma found that it looked to be a piece of paper wrapped inside a sheet of clear plastic and taped shut.

Suddenly breathless, she gently tore the plastic open and took out the paper. Unfolding it, she found Fitz's familiar, if faded, handwriting.

_Thanks for coming with me on a walk today. Hope you had fun. Maybe we can do it again sometime.  
Fitz _

There was something painfully sweet burning in her chest, and Jemma's hands trembled lightly as she held the note. This wasn't something that had magically traveled through the letterbox; this was a letter that had lain in wait for her for two years to find. That somehow made it infinitely more tangible, real, and precious to her. She wished more than ever then that Fitz were there with her, that part of his 'reward' included him surprising her in person, that he'd waited two years to catch up with her-but, glancing around, her face flushed, no one seemed to notice her.

The absence of anyone who could have been Fitz didn't detract from her joy over his note, though. She looked back down it at for another few, long minutes, a small smile on her face, before folding it back up and carefully sliding it into her bag. She'd had a very good day being taken on her tour of Glasgow, but she rather thought that finding Fitz's note was the best part of the entire thing.

-:-

Fitz wasn't expecting to hear from Jemma for a full week after she told him she was planning on taking her tour, but to his surprise there was a letter waiting for him from her when he checked the post on Thursday.

_Thank you so much for taking me on a tour of the city, Fitz_, it read. _I had such a good time. The weather was beautiful, and it was a wonderful opportunity to get out and about and get some exercise. _

He smiled at that. Of course she'd mention exercise.

_I have to say I think my favorite parts were the cathedral-the stained glass windows were gorgeous with the sun coming through them and it was just so quiet and peaceful inside-and the garden at the People's Palace. You were right in thinking I'd like that. Oh, and the café was quite nice, too. I had lunch there. It was fun to pretend you were with me the whole time, like a proper tour guide, giving commentary on everything. It made it feel like you were really there with me. _

He felt some kind of unnameable emotion swell in his chest. He would have very much liked to take her for a walk through the city himself, to see her face light up as she took in each new thing, to talk with her and hear her laugh. But seeing as they were stuck separated by two impossible-to-cross years, he'd done the best that he could.

Knowing he'd done something nice for her, that Jemma had taken a break and enjoyed herself, was reward enough for Fitz. After all, wasn't that what friends were for?


	5. Chapter 5

Jemma shifted nervously in her seat, her hands twisting in her lap. Around her, the Gilchrist Club was bustling with its lunchtime rush, but her focus was squarely on Bobbi, who sat across from her studying the papers she held in her hand. A few more were nestled on the table in between their untouched lunches.

Unable to contain her curiosity anymore, Jemma blurted, "So? What do you think?"

Bobbi pursed her lips as she thumbed through the pages, then shrugged lightly. "He looks like he's intelligent. And you obviously get along great. I think you could have done a lot worse."

Jemma huffed. "_No, _I mean about the fact that I am clearly communicating with someone through time!" she hissed, keeping her voice low enough so that no one nearby could overhear.

"It looks like you're passing notes in class." Bobbi shrugged again, setting the pages she was holding down on top of the stack in the center of the table. "All the replies one after another and everything. It's kind of cute."

Jemma fought the urge to glare, or possibly wilt in her seat. She couldn't tell if Bobbi was taking her seriously or not. "We're obviously not sitting next to each other trading notes when we could simply just talk to each other," she pointed out. "I've never seen him. I've got no idea what he even looks like."

Bobbi took a sip of her water and sighed, giving her a thoughtful look. "Jemma. I know you're not the type of person to get carried away on flights of fancy or anything like that, but have you considered… that maybe you're being pranked?"

Jemma really did slump in her seat then, convinced Bobbi didn't believe her. Then again, would she, if someone had presented her with the story she was telling now? Not likely. But she'd ruled out all other available possibilities, and the evidence told the truth: Fitz was from the past.

"No, I'm positive I'm not," she said, shaking her head. "I've seen the letters appear myself." When Bobbi raised an eyebrow at her, she added, "Well, _heard _them, really. I haven't actually seen his notes appear out of thin air. But I can hear them drop into the letterbox, and there's no way for him to be manipulating it from inside the house. I checked. He would have had to cut through the stone wall and the plaster inside, and… it would be an awful lot of trouble to go to in order to prank someone he didn't even know."

Bobbi chewed thoughtfully on a bite of her sandwich, then said, "Hey, what's that quote, the Sherlock Holmes one? 'Whenever you have eliminated the impossible-'"

"'Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,'" Jemma said along with her, nodding. "Yes, that's what I told myself when I realized there weren't any other answers. There's no other way to explain it. The letterbox is just… somehow it's created a portal through time."

That got a smile out of Bobbi, and she tilted her head at Jemma as her expression turned a little playful. "And now you've gone and gotten yourself a boyfriend from the past through it."

Jemma blinked at her in shock. "What? Ugh, no, he's not my boyfriend. I don't _need _one right now, not after things with Will ended so badly." Bobbi nodded in understanding, and Jemma stabbed at her salad with her fork. "Fitz is just a good friend. Besides, like I said, I don't even know what he looks like."

Bobbi made a face. "You mean you haven't looked him up online?" she asked. When Jemma shook her head, she added, "Why not? Are you afraid you're going to find out he's ugly or he lied about his age or who he is or something? That he catfished you through letters?"

"No!" The idea that Fitz would lie to her was absolutely abhorrent, and Jemma squashed it immediately. "He-he wouldn't-he would never lie to me," she said, feeling the need to defend him. At Bobbi's dubious look, she went on. "I trust him. And I don't care what he looks like, that's not what our friendship is about. I suppose I haven't looked him up because…"

She trailed off, uncertain. Why _hadn't _she ever ran a search for Fitz online? The thought had occurred to her more than once, but she'd brushed it away every time. Like she'd told Bobbi, their relationship wasn't based on physical things and she didn't need to know what he looked like in order to enjoy talking to him. But hadn't she been wishing more and more often that she could talk to him in person? Hadn't she wished he'd actually accompanied her on her walk through the city?

As if reading her thoughts, Bobbi said, "I mean, if you like him so much, you could just look him up and then you could hang out for real. You wouldn't have to talk through a letterbox anymore."

Jemma inhaled slowly and then sighed. "I suppose… I've been afraid to look him up," she said quietly.

Bobbi frowned. "Why? You said you didn't care if he was ugly."

"I don't," Jemma insisted. "It's just… what if I look him up and he's moved away? Or he's moved on and he's happily married to someone else?"

Bobbi raised one eyebrow and smirked. "I thought you said you weren't interested in him."

"I'm not! Oh-it's all very confusing." Jemma rested one hand nervously against the side of her neck. "Fitz could look me up too, you know. He could search me out in the here and now, if he really wanted to, because it's _his _future. But he hasn't. Or maybe he hasn't because it hasn't yet occurred to him to do so in the past." She made a face at her salad. "Time is strange."

Bobbi shook her head as she picked up her sandwich to take another bite. "For you, definitely."

-:-

"You've got a nice place here," Hunter said, standing in the middle of the conservatory and looking up at the water sliding over the glass ceiling and walls. A summer rainstorm had sprung up just after he'd arrived, forcing them indoors, so Fitz had hurried Hunter inside and showed him around the interior of the cottage instead.

"It's kind of fancy," Hunter added, gesturing at the walls of the conservatory. "And posh. That kitchen?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "That's _really _posh."

Fitz smiled, leaning against the door frame leading back inside the cottage and folding his arms over his chest. "Thanks. I-I think this has been exactly what I needed."

Hunter's eyes lit up. "Really? That's good to hear, mate. I noticed you've been doing better with your talking. Being out here really helps?" When Fitz nodded, he turned to look back out at the rainy countryside. "Yeah, I guess I can see why you like it. It's very… pastoral, if that's your kind of thing. Though I think it's really rotten that you've got to drive if you want to go have a drink."

Fitz laughed. "The village is only a few minutes up the road, and they've got a bar at the inn."

"Still." Hunter wrinkled his nose. "That's more trouble than it's worth, getting in the car and driving. I can just leave my flat and walk down the block."

Shrugging, Fitz demurred, "It's the price I pay for getting better."

Hunter tilted his head thoughtfully, nodding. "Fair. And speaking of drinks… I saw some beer in your fridge." He sauntered past him to go back into the house, through the hall and into the kitchen. Fitz turned to follow, and accepted a bottle of Benderry's from him when he pulled one from the fridge. "But I do have to say," he added as he shut the door and picked up the bottle opener from the counter, "that it's awfully _big _for just you. How many bedrooms has it got again? Three?"

Fitz shrugged again and took the bottle opener from him, popping the cap off and then setting both back down on the counter as he leaned against it. "It was a nice house for a good price," he explained. "I couldn't pass up the opportunity. My mum has her own bed when she comes to visit."

"Yeah, and what about the other bedroom?" Hunter asked. "You could hide an entire family in here." Then his eyebrows went up. "Or, you could have a whole line of lady friends coming through here and no one in town would ever be the wiser."

Fitz rolled his eyes. "Shove off," he grumbled good-naturedly, taking a sip of his beer. He would never understand why Hunter was so concerned with his love life, or rather his lack of one.

Hunter's grin widened. "Really? No lady friends? Haven't gone off and found yourself a wee bonnie country lass to woo?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

The expression on Fitz's face turned withering. "Please never talk like that again. You sound like a tosser."

His irritation didn't faze Hunter in the least. "None at all?" He gave Fitz an exaggerated disbelieving look. "_None_? Moving out here really _has _turned you into even more of a hermit."

Fitz's thoughts turned to Jemma without meaning to. While she wasn't some secret girlfriend he was hiding away from his friends, she was certainly _someone _. Someone who mattered a lot to him. Someone who, if things were different, he might possibly want as something more.

His thoughts must have shown on his face, because suddenly Hunter's eyes widened. "Oh my god-wait," he said, putting a hand out toward him. "There _is _someone."

Fitz blinked, coming out of his reverie, then blanched. "Uh-"

Hunter whooped, looking like Christmas had come early. "You do! You've got a girl!"

"Um-_no_-not really, no, she's not my-" Fitz stammered, feeling heat crawl up his neck.

Ignoring his protests and clapping him on the shoulder, Hunter said, "Come on, mate, tell me about her! What's her name? Where's she from?"

Fitz swallowed, feeling a pit of anxiety open up in his stomach. He hadn't told anyone about Jemma, knowing that if he did they would likely question the state of his brain injury and suggest he see his doctor. But Hunter knew he'd tried to deliver a letter to an address that wasn't there, and if there was anyone who would be willing to believe his unlikely tale, it would be his friend. But the fear of ridicule remained regardless. Taking a deep breath, he looked back at Hunter, who was still waiting expectantly.

"You're going to think I'm mad," he said.

Hunter scoffed. "Already think you're a little mad," he replied. "How else could you come up with all of your genius inventions? Whatever you're thinking, it can't possibly be _that _bad."

Fitz sucked in an unsteady breath, hoping he wasn't about to make a mistake. "She's from the future."

Hunter's flat expression remained unchanged. "You're joking."

"No!" Fitz shook his head. "No, I'm not. She sends me notes through my letterbox-" At that, Hunter's expression turned to one of disbelief, and Fitz pointed a finger at him. "See? You think I'm mad! And if it wasn't raining buckets I'd prove it to you, but-look." He went back into the hall to go to the conservatory, and Hunter followed, his interest apparently piqued. Fitz retrieved a small box from underneath his drafting table and held it out to Hunter. Inside were all of the letters and notes from Jemma that he'd kept.

"These are all from her," he explained. "Jemma. See how she mentions the date in some of them? And how, in the others, we're writing back and forth to each other? It's all real. My letterbox is a mystery marvel of quantum physics. And it's connected me to _her. _"

Hunter pursed his lips as he looked through the sheets of paper in the box. "Sounds like you've got it pretty bad for this Jemma."

"What?" Fitz felt his cheeks flush again. "I do not."

But his face apparently told a different story, because Hunter gave him an exasperated look. "Mate," he said slowly, as if explaining something to a small child, "these are like _love letters_. I can't think of any man who would spend all this effort writing to some girl if he didn't want to be with her." He made a face. "Even if she's from the future, which I don't entirely believe…"

Fitz squirmed a little. They were just regular, plain letters, two friends talking the only way they could. And even if he _did _like Jemma a little bit, nothing could ever come of it, so why bother nurturing those feelings? She was his best friend, and that was what was important.

"She's just a friend," he said, taking the box of letters back. "Time's set that way."

"Right," Hunter said, clearly disbelieving, but he didn't have to think Fitz was telling the truth. Fitz knew it for himself. Jemma was in the future, and he would always be stuck in her past.

-:-

One day in late August, as their usual afternoon of exchanging letters came to a close, Jemma sent a note through that was unlike anything she had ever given him before.

_I have a mission for you, should you choose to accept it_, it read. _This coming Sunday, in your time, I took the 11:16 morning train from Perth to Glasgow. But I accidentally left something very important to me behind at the station. It's a book my father gave me when I was young. I was never able to recover it. I know you're not too far away, so if you could find it, it would mean the world to me. _

Fitz read the letter with a certain amount of surprise. This was the first time she had ever suggested anything like meddling with her past, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. Before he'd met Jemma, he'd always viewed time as an illusion; there was no past and no future, it just _was _. Now, through the unique circumstances of their friendship, he was starting to warm up to her belief that time was fluid, ever-changing, and that the decisions he made could shape her future. He twiddled his pen between his fingers for a moment.

_Are you sure this is a good idea? _he teased. _Saving your book won't start a butterfly effect with serious consequences for the world at large, will it? _

_Oh please, Mr. 'Time Is Fixed', it's just a book_, she shot back. _Who knows, maybe I was never able to find it because you were always there to pick it up. _

Fitz laughed. _Touché_, he wrote. _Alright, I'll see if I can go make this a self-fulfilling prophecy. Time is weird. _

Jemma's reply came quickly. _Thank you! You're the best. xx _

He smiled down at her words. The obvious affection behind them, and the little kisses she'd crossed off at the end so easily, made him feel like he could do anything she asked of him. He would have done it anyway, because it was _Jemma _, but her note made it even more sweet.

On Sunday morning, Fitz got up and was ready to go with plenty of time before Jemma's train, but timed his arrival carefully so he didn't look like a creep loitering around the platform. The drive into Perth was short, and he parked his car in the little lot outside the train station before heading inside, nervous energy fizzing in his veins.

He approached Platform 4 with a certain degree of apprehension, unsure of what he expected to find. The train was already there, and checking his watch, he noted that it was just before 11:16. A few people were boarding the train, but one couple remained on the platform, huddled close to each other next to one of the benches. Fitz's steps slowed as he drew near them, trying not to draw attention to himself. Then the woman stepped back slightly, revealing her face, and his stomach dropped through the floor.

It was Jemma. He recognized her immediately from her staff photo he'd found; her hair was still the same short length and her smile was unmistakable. Seeing her in person, made physically real and tangible right in front of him, all bright-eyed and full of life, felt like a punch to the gut. Fitz was overcome by a wave of longing so strong it took his breath away. He tottered unsteadily on his feet, captivated by her; he wanted nothing more than to go to her and say hello, to take her hands in his and feel the softness of her skin beneath his fingers, to look into her eyes and explain how happy he was to finally meet her in person.

But she would have no idea who he was. Jemma wouldn't find him for another two years, and if he approached her now, he'd come off looking like a madman. Besides, none of that mattered anyway-she was clearly caught up in the man she was with, who was tall and well-built and handsome, everything that Fitz wasn't. He felt a sour blade of jealousy lance through him as he watched Jemma smile up at the other man, her eyes shining and her hands resting on his chest as his arms wrapped around her, and he had to look away. All he could think of was how she had told him that her ex-boyfriend was an arse, but she certainly didn't seem to feel that way at the moment.

He looked back just in time to see her go up on her toes to give her boyfriend a long, firm kiss. He scowled, feeling his stomach twist again, and shoved his hands in his pockets. Then Jemma said something that he couldn't quite make out, adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder, and turned to head for the train. Her boyfriend watched until she disappeared through the door into the car, then headed off down the platform toward the exit.

Fitz took that as his cue to edge toward the bench they'd been standing next to. As he came alongside it, he saw a thick paperback book sitting on the seat. He immediately moved to pick it up, then looked at the train. He could just make out Jemma sitting in a window seat, and as the train shuddered to life and began to move, she turned her head to look in his direction.

He swore their eyes met, and for one brief, electric second he felt like he couldn't breathe again. Then the train picked up speed and pulled out of the station, and Jemma was gone, leaving him alone on the platform holding the book in his hands.

He waited until the train was out of sight, then looked down at the book. It was an old, worn copy of _The Backyard Astronomer's Guide_. He felt a tug at his heart; Jemma had once told him that she'd loved stargazing with her father as a child. This book must have been a gift from him to encourage her hobby. He leafed quickly through the book, taking note of some of the dog-eared pages, before closing it with a sigh.

During the drive back to the cottage, Fitz's mind kept straying back to the little things he'd noticed about Jemma during those few moments on the platform. How petite she was, the rich brown of her hair, what little he could hear of her accent as she spoke. The way her smile lit up her entire face, how she just seemed to radiate light and warmth. He'd been completely drawn to her, and was convinced he would have noticed her even if he didn't already know just how wonderful and kind and funny she was as a person.

All of that also forced him to confront how much it had unexpectedly hurt to see her with another man. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that someone like Jemma was dating someone like that, but seeing them together had brought back every insecure feeling he'd ever had regarding himself. Why would Jemma ever want someone like him when she could have tall, dark, and handsome?

_She said he was an arse_, he reminded himself. _She broke up with him. _But it was scant comfort.

Why did he care if Jemma would be interested in him in the first place?

Because, he admitted to himself grimly, he'd fallen hard for her without ever even noticing.

-:-

That next Saturday, Jemma arrived at the cottage on a wave of excitement, looking forward to finding her book waiting for her in the letterbox. To her disappointment, there was only a note from Fitz. She pulled it out, her shoulders slumping.

_I found your book_, it read. _Unfortunately, it's just a little too thick to fit inside the letterbox _.

She perked up. He'd found it, for which she was immensely glad. At least she knew it was with him now instead of being tossed in a bin or just existing out in the void somewhere.

_It's safe with me and I promise I'll get it back to you somehow. Also, I saw you while I was there. I think we saw each other. _

Jemma sucked in a little gasp of shock. He'd _what_?! Before she was even conscious of doing it, she was digging through her bag for her pen to quickly scribble a reply.

_What?! You saw me? Why didn't you say anything? _

Fitz huffed a small laugh when he saw her reply, and wondered just how much she remembered of that day if she didn't know why he hadn't approached her, aside from the obvious reason that she didn't know him. He decided to be diplomatic with his response, afraid that she would somehow be able to divine his newly-realized feelings for her if he even so much as mentioned her boyfriend.

_I couldn't say anything_, he wrote. _You don't know me yet here in my time, you would have thought I was mad. _

He had a point, Jemma thought to herself. She didn't know how she would have handled a complete stranger walking up to her and saying they were actually very good friends, no matter how charming he was. Still, she found it completely unfair that he'd been allowed to have a glimpse of her and she'd yet to see him.

_Still! _she wrote back. _You got to see me, and I don't even know what you look like. You have an advantage over me now. _

Fitz wasn't quite sure what to make of the fact that she obviously hadn't tried to look him up online, the way he'd done her, but he brushed that thought aside. He knew how he wanted to respond to her; he just didn't know if he was brave enough to do it. Seeing her at the train station had only solidified his desire to meet her somehow, properly, in _her _time-even if it meant defying time itself and waiting. Jemma was worth it. He stared down at the paper for a moment, tapping his pen against it anxiously, before taking a deep breath and dashing off the words before he had time to overthink it.

_Well, we could always meet up in your time, so you can see me for yourself. _

He rushed to drop it in the letterbox before he could talk himself out of that as well. Then he rocked back on his heels and waited for her reply.

And waited.

The letterbox stayed silent and empty. Worry and a little bit of dread formed in the pit of his stomach. Had that been the wrong thing to say, had it been too much? Had he completely misread her-had she no interest in seeing him whatsoever?

His nerves churning, he grabbed another piece of paper to write a quick addendum.

_Or not, it was just an idea. We don't have to_.

Slipping it into the letterbox, Fitz pressed his thumb into the palm of his left hand and bit his lip, trying not to fidget too much as he waited again. He desperately hoped he hadn't made Jemma uncomfortable with his suggestion, or crossed some invisible boundary of their friendship that wasn't meant to be transgressed. The last thing he wanted was to ruin the wonderful thing they had together.

"Come on," he muttered, his eyes fixed on the the letterbox. "Please answer me back."

But it remained stubbornly empty.

-:-

In truth, Jemma had never received Fitz's hastily-written final note. She'd been so flustered by his proposal to meet up that she'd immediately gone home to think it over, and had completely forgotten that maybe she'd want to give him some sort of notice about leaving. By the time she realized she'd left him high and dry, she was already back at her flat, and it was too late to drive all the way back out to the cottage, even for him. So she'd cringed terribly, hoped he'd forgive her, and vowed to make it up by being extra sweet to him the next weekend.

Of course she wanted to meet up with him; that wasn't the issue. She just didn't know if Fitz fully realized what he was suggesting. It would mean two full years of waiting just for her, and who knew what would happen in that time for him? They could drift apart, stop talking, or he could meet someone else and forget all about her… none of which appealed to her at all, and left her feeling empty and unsettled.

But maybe she deserved something nice for herself. It was her birthday, after all. And Fitz, she felt, was definitely worth taking a risk on. She smiled at his letter, which she was holding in her hand, then set it aside to pick up her notebook and pen and took a deep breath. As she held the pen to the paper, poised to write, she felt a little thrill run down her spine. Yes, she was going to do this.

_Let's make it a date. If you can, call me just after 8:06 p.m. on September _

Her phone rang.

Jemma froze, her eyes flying to where the phone was lying on the coffee table. Could it possibly be-? She hadn't even finished writing her note, much less delivered it. But perhaps the very act of writing the note itself was setting things in motion, and Fitz had already received it in her past and had been waiting two years just to call her. Her pulse spiked in excitement at just the thought of getting to hear his voice, and she leaned forward to pick her phone up.

Then she saw the name that lit up the screen, and her heart sank into her feet.

Thumbing the screen to take the call, she sighed and put the phone up to her ear. "Hello?"

"Jemma?" a familiar voice said. "Hey, it's Will."

"Oh. Hello, Will," she said, trying to swallow down her crushing disappointment and sound polite instead. "What, um-how've you been?"

"Good, good, yeah," Will replied easily. "Listen, I was in town on business today and realized it was your birthday, and thought-hey, maybe we could go out for drinks? You know, just for old times' sake, to catch up."

Jemma frowned, looking down at her notebook in her lap and her unfinished note to Fitz. She hadn't seen or spoken to Will in months, not since they'd ended things. She'd made it clear that she wanted a clean break and he'd given it to her. It was a little odd that he was appearing out of nowhere after all this time, but he didn't _sound _like he had any ulterior motives. Still, she was unsure. "I don't know," she hedged, tapping her pen against the paper. "I was kind of hoping for a quiet night in."

"On your birthday?" Will sounded incredulous. "Come on, Jem. We don't have to stay out long, just one drink. You deserve it. It's your birthday."

She sighed. Maybe one drink, a free one at that, wouldn't be so bad. And it wasn't as if she didn't know him. "Alright," she said at length. "One drink. Where are you? I can meet you somewhere, preferably in the West End."

"Great!" Will sounded a little too enthusiastic maybe, but Jemma shrugged it off. "I can hop on the metro and look up some places on my way over, if you don't have any suggestions."

"I'll text you," Jemma said, hoping she wasn't making a mistake. "I'll see you in a little while."

"Yeah, great," Will said again. "See you soon."

They hung up, and Jemma sighed again as she set her notebook down on the sofa cushion next to Fitz's letter, and gave them both a sad look. She was reluctant to leave-she wanted to finish her letter to him and hopefully put the wheels in motion to finally meet him properly-but maybe she just needed to get this out of the way first. One drink with Will for old times' sake wouldn't kill her. And if she spent the whole time wishing she were with Fitz instead, well, Will didn't have to know that.


	6. Chapter 6

Within five minutes of meeting up with Will, Jemma knew she had made a mistake. Instead of going to the bar they'd agreed on, he'd announced that he was hungry and tried to talk her into getting something to eat at a cozy little café just down the street. She'd politely refused, telling him she'd already had dinner and wasn't hungry. Then, he'd switched gears and said that they should at least go somewhere for a slice of cake or pie, since it was her birthday. Feeling like she'd been played, she shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and stalled on the curb, trying to think of a way to bow out gracefully.

"What's the matter, Jem?" Will asked, ducking a bit to try and catch her expression. "Why the face?"

Jemma scrunched her nose even more. For some reason, his use of the diminutive he'd always called her by was irritating rather than cute. "This was supposed to be just a drink, and now you're trying to-to turn it into a _thing_."

"It's your birthday!" Will exclaimed, as though that explained everything. "You're supposed to treat yourself."

She fought to hold in a heavy sigh. All this time, and he still hadn't learned that she didn't like making a big deal out of her birthday. She would have been much happier staying home, reading a book and calling her parents. She shook her head. "I'd really rather not," she said. "I'd like to just stick to a quick drink, if that's alright."

"Oh, come on," Will wheedled, doing his best to look charming. "It's just cake." But to Jemma he just appeared grating, and she wondered how she'd ever been attracted to him in the first place. Well, she knew why-he was good-looking, and he'd been interested in her. But hindsight was always clearer, she supposed. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Did you _really _come to town on business today?" she asked. "Because it's sounding an awful lot like you had all this planned."

Will blinked at her for a minute before sighing, his shoulders drooping dramatically. "Alright, you got me," he said. "No, I wasn't here on business." When Jemma started to squawk in outrage, he hurried to add, "I wanted to see you, but I knew you'd never come out with me if you thought it wasn't something spontaneous."

Jemma gaped at him. "Will!" she said hotly, crossing her arms tightly across her chest and taking a step away from him. "You _do _remember that I broke up with you, right? And I meant it!"

"I know, I know!" Will cried, holding out his hands, trying to placate her. "But it's been awhile, and I've been thinking about you, and-I don't know-I thought that maybe we could try again? And take it slow this time."

This time, Jemma really did let out a huff of indignant disbelief. "Slow?" she scoffed. "_Now _you want to talk about taking it slow?"

"Yes," Will replied, a touch defensively. "What's wrong with that?"

Jemma laughed shortly and looked away, caught between anger at Will for deceiving her and anger at herself for being so easily fooled. "Will," she said, turning back to him, "you wouldn't know 'slow' if it hit you on the street." At his offended look, she continued, "We'd barely been dating a few weeks before you had our entire future together mapped out! Talking about buying a house, getting married… and you threw me that big party for my birthday and invited half of Perth when you _know _I don't like surprises. Remember that?"

Will shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. "You seemed to like one of them well enough," he muttered, scowling. It seemed to have dawned on him fully that she wasn't going to fall in line with his plans for the evening and now he was downright grumpy.

Jemma blinked at him, confused. "What?"

His frown deepened. "You know what I'm talking about."

"No, I really don't," she said. This was eerily reminiscent of the last weeks of their relationship, where Will had become churlish and irritable and petty, and she didn't care for it at all. "I'm not a mind reader, Will. What are you on about?"

Will pulled his hands back out of his pockets and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, giving her a testy look. "The guy from your party," he snapped. "You know, the one I caught you making out with."

"What-" But Jemma cut herself off with a tiny gasp as memories that had been lost to time and alcohol rushed in on her, in fragments like photographs: blue eyes, a shy smile, city lights obscuring a starlit night. Then what Will had said caught up with her, and her cheeks flushed with anger and old shame. "That was-I was _not _making out with him!" she cried, even as her mind provided her with blurry sense memory of the kiss in question. "It was just a kiss. _One _kiss, with-with someone I didn't even know, and who I haven't seen since. I was drunk. It didn't mean anything!"

Will crossed his arms and leveled her with a severe look. "That's not what it looked like to me."

-:-

Fitz walked toward the front of the local B&Q, carrying a full can of paint in each hand. It was a Thursday, which meant he didn't have to go in to the lab in Glasgow, and while he should have been at home working, he'd opted to take the day off to run some errands. He had a few DIY items on his to-do list that he felt he could get a start on over the weekend while things were relatively slow at work, so he'd driven to Perth to pick up some supplies. Paint brushes, rollers, and a tray were in a bag hooked around his wrist, and the paint itself had been the last thing he needed. Now he was headed for the till to pay for everything and take it home to join the dropcloths he'd found in the shed.

Just as he was passing the outdoor and garden section, someone came out from one of the aisles with a large box loaded down on his cart, nearly bowling him over. Fitz yelped and tried to dodge it, the paint cans in his hands swinging and almost overbalancing him.

"Sorry! God, sorry," the man pushing the cart cried, bringing it to an abrupt halt. "I was in a hurry, I didn't see you. Are you okay?"

Fitz stumbled slightly as he regained his equilibrium, but waved the man's concerns off. "I'm fine, yeah, no worries," he said. "Just, um, startled me." He gave him a small, polite smile before turning to head for the tills again. The man's accent stuck with him, though-it wasn't often that he came across Americans in Perth, and he thought that maybe he'd seen or met the man somewhere before, but he couldn't quite place him.

There was a long line formed at the lone open till, so Fitz sighed and readjusted his grip on the paint cans, settling in to wait. He glanced behind him at the sound of wheels squeaking on the cement floor and saw that the American had joined him in line; he gave him another half-smile and a nod before turning back around, his mind running over how he wanted to deal with arranging the furniture in the lounge while he painted.

"Fixing up your apartment?"

Fitz looked back around. The American was grinning at him, nodding down at the paint cans Fitz was holding. Seeing that they had a wait ahead of them, he had decided to try and start up a conversation. Maybe he felt bad for almost running him over and was just trying to be social.

"Hmm? Oh, uh-yeah," Fitz replied, lifting one of the cans a little. "Painting my lounge." Then, remembering that making small talk actually meant talking more, he added, "Been meaning to do it ever since I moved in, but I've just kept putting it off."

"Ah, right, gotcha," the man said, nodding sagely. "Where do you live?"

Fitz hummed to himself. The man looked completely harmless, so it didn't feel like a bad move to give him the basics. "I've got a house out near Dunning," he replied. "Not too far from here."

"Oh, right, yeah," the man said, flexing his fingers over the handlebar of his cart. "I know where that is. Out near Gleneagles, right? The golf course?" Fitz nodded. "That's some beautiful country. I promised my girlfriend I'd look for a house for us together out that way."

Fitz hummed again. "Yeah, it's-it's nice. Nice and quiet." He turned to shuffle forward a bit as the line moved. He wasn't particularly interested in hearing more about the other man's search for a love nest with his undoubtedly perfect girlfriend, to go along with his sharp jawline and well-built physique. He just seemed like one of _those _men, the kind that had his entire life together, who didn't have to worry about things like shaky hands and lost words and blinding headaches. Fitz had come a long way in his recovery, especially since moving to the cottage, but he still had his bad days.

"So you said you're new here?" Fitz sighed and turned back around to find the American still watching him, and nodded. "Have you had a chance to get out and meet anyone?"

Feeling slightly suspicious, Fitz shrugged. "Ah-no. Not really. I kind of, um, keep to myself."

"Oh. Well, I'm having a party at my place tonight. That's what this is for." The man grinned and patted the side of the large box on his cart, which had a photo of a charcoal grill on it. "You're welcome to come, if you'd like to."

Fitz blinked at him. An invitation to a party or anything like that from a complete stranger wasn't something that often happened to him, but-hadn't Hunter been telling him he needed to get out more? This was a good opportunity for it. And this guy didn't look so bad, bland perfection aside. A few hours at his flat drinking beer and eating grilled food wouldn't be so terrible, or so he hoped.

"Sure," he said, shrugging again. "Why not? I haven't got any real plans tonight."

"Great!" the man replied, his grin widening. He leaned forward over his cart to extend a hand toward Fitz. "Will Daniels."

Fitz gave his hand a firm shake, smiling slightly. "Leo Fitz."

Will nodded back, then gestured at Fitz's pocket. "Got your phone on you? I can put my address in so you know where to go."

"Oh-uh, yeah, sure," Fitz said, digging his phone out and unlocking it before passing it over. He watched as Will tapped around the screen, entering his address into the map app. "What time's the party?"

"7 p.m.," Will replied, tapping the phone one more time before handing it back. Then he arched an eyebrow. "Well, technically it's at 7:30, but I'm getting everyone there a bit early. It's a surprise birthday party for my girlfriend."

"Ah, that's nice," Fitz murmured, looking at Will's address on his map app. It wasn't too far off the city center. Parking was going to be fun.

Will chuckled. "Yeah, Jemma doesn't get out a lot, so I'm hoping this will be a bit of fun for her."

Fitz nearly dropped his phone, his head whipping up to look at Will in shock. "J-Jemma?" he choked.

Will, who had taken hold of his cart to push it as the line inched forward again, didn't notice Fitz's surprise. "Yeah, my girlfriend," he said. "You'll like her, she's really nice."

Fitz had to bite his lip hard to keep back an automatic retort. He didn't know for certain if Will's girlfriend was his Jemma anyway-it wasn't all that uncommon a name-though now that he thought about it, he was almost one hundred percent sure that Will was Tall, Dark, and Handsome from the train station. He couldn't believe it. An opportunity to see Jemma again had been dropped right into his lap-but it was tempered by the knowledge that he couldn't talk to her, not the way he did through their letters, and that he would have to see her be all cozy with _him. _

A faint wave of anxiety washed over him, and for a moment he considered making up an excuse not to attend the party after all. But the lure of being able to see Jemma in person was too great, so he swallowed down any reservations he had and put on a smile for Will.

"I'm sure she is," he said. "Looking forward to meeting her."

-:-

"I wish I'd known it was your birthday," Bobbi said, swirling the ice around the bottom of her glass. "I would have taken you out-drinks, dinner, a movie, whatever. Then you would have had an excuse when Will called and he wouldn't have been able to pull that garbage on you."

Jemma sighed, staring down into the dregs of her own drink. She'd finally managed to get rid of Will by telling him she didn't want to hear from him ever again and stomping off angrily into the night. Then, feeling rattled, she'd called Bobbi. Her friend had immediately swooped in to the rescue, meeting her at the bar Jemma had originally agreed on with Will and letting her vent. She'd bought her a drink, too, which Jemma thought was especially nice of her.

"It's fine," Jemma replied. "I've never made a big deal out of my birthday, even when I was young. It's like any other day, just one that happens to mark the passage of time. And anyway, he's gone now, hopefully for good, so all's well that ends well, I suppose."

Bobbi brought her glass to her lips, draining the last of her cocktail, then set it back down on the bar and gave Jemma a thoughtful look. "Don't take this the wrong way, but he might have had a point on one thing."

Jemma balked. "What?!"

"Hey, just hear me out," Bobbi soothed, holding up a hand. "Seriously, though-you do deserve to relax and treat yourself sometimes. You work so hard, and I know you're putting so much of yourself into the research for your book. I just don't want you to burn out."

Grumbling slightly, fighting the urge to defend herself and her work ethic, Jemma had to admit that Bobbi was probably right. She'd always had a tendency to go full tilt into a project, usually to the detriment of her physical health. Long hours, research roadblocks, and little sleep meant she was usually exhausted and stressed. She kept telling herself she'd switch gears and slow down once she made Reader, but she knew she would likely just set her sights on being promoted to a chair.

"I won't burn out," she mumbled, only a little defensively. "I promise. I've been-taking breaks." If that was what one could call her weekly trips out to the cottage to talk to Fitz, where she oftentimes brought some of her research with her to work on while waiting for his longer letters.

"Well, I still worry about you," Bobbi insisted. "We should do a girls' night more often. I know you've got me, but is there anyone else in the department you get along with? We could always call Helen and ask if she wants to come with." At Jemma's amiable shrug, she continued, "Or hey, any cute guys you've got your eye on?" She raised her eyebrows. "Any friends with benefits?"

Jemma snorted inelegantly. "Oh, please. _No. _Nothing like that. All I had was Will, and you know how well _that _turned out."

-:-

At 7 p.m. sharp, Fitz turned up at Will's flat in his nicest jeans and a smart button-down and cardigan, once again unsure of what to expect. Large social gatherings had never really been his thing, and that had been _before _the accident, even amongst people he knew. He didn't know anything about Will and the crowd he ran with, what they did, what they were like. But he reminded himself that it was for Jemma-or for himself, really, a completely selfish, indulgent wish to see her in person-and took a deep breath before walking up to the front door.

He was immediately buzzed inside and told which number to come to upstairs, where Will greeted him cheerfully at the door and immediately offered him a beer. There was already a sizeable crowd packed into the flat, and Will introduced Fitz to everyone as "Leo, met him at B&Q, he's new in town," before telling him he was more than welcome to hit up the back patio for some food if he wanted to. Then he left him alone to go tend to his other guests.

The party ended up not being as completely horrible as Fitz had feared. It turned out that Will was a humanities professor at the local college (though Fitz felt a little judgmental that an American had chosen to specialize in Scottish history), so, many of the people there were fellow academics. It meant he could actually hold a conversation, even if it was still semi-excruciating small talk. The rest seemed to be people that Will knew from his favorite pub or the local amateur football league he played with. Fitz took it all in as he made his way slowly around the main living space of the flat, and then outside to grab something to eat, spending what he hoped was a socially-acceptable amount of time oohing and aahing over the grill he'd seen Will buy earlier that day.

He was back inside the lounge and the time read just before 7:30 p.m. according to his wristwatch when Will dashed in, motioning for everyone gathered to quiet down.

"Jem just texted me, she's on her way in from the train station," he said, holding up his phone. "Should be here in a minute or two. Stay quiet, everyone, but get ready to yell."

Fitz's heart jumped into his throat, his pulse pounding in his ears, as he moved with everyone to crowd into the far side of the lounge. Someone turned off the Bluetooth speakers that had been playing music, and they all fell silent save for the occasional quiet murmur, many of them appearing to hold their breath.

After what felt like an eternity of Fitz gripping his beer bottle hard enough to potentially shatter the glass, the door buzzer sounded. He flinched. Will, who was posted by the door leading out of the lounge, gave everyone assembled a double thumbs up and a grin before disappearing into the hall. Fitz's stomach churned. He was about to see Jemma again with a chance he would actually get to speak to her this time, and he didn't know what he would say. Would this change history? Would meeting her in her past rewrite time? What if he was making a huge mistake?

The sound of the front door opening and Will's enthusiastic greeting was followed by a woman's voice in the sweetest English lilt he'd ever heard, growing louder as she came closer.

"-I'm positively wrecked, today was just so busy. I'm really glad I've got tomorrow-"

Then she came around the corner of the door into the lounge with a bag slung over her shoulder, Will on her heels, and everyone around Fitz shouted "Surprise!" as loud as they could.

Fitz, who hadn't jumped or shouted or made so much as a peep because he'd been so taken by the sight of Jemma standing mere feet from him, saw her eyes go wide, and a panicked deer-in-headlights look flashed across her face for the briefest of seconds before she pasted on a smile. "Oh!" she exclaimed, twisting her hands together at her waist as Will wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Oh, oh wow, this is… this is certainly a surprise!" She looked up at him. "You shouldn't have."

Fitz wondered if it was just him who thought it sounded like Jemma felt that Will _really _shouldn't have but, as everyone around him came forward to press in and greet her, it looked like he was alone. He decided to hold back, leaning against the far wall while slowly sipping his beer, and let everyone else get in their hellos first. He was the stranger here, after all, and if he looked awkward standing off by himself, he supposed that was just part and parcel of it.

Instead, he watched as Will and Jemma made their way around the room, talking to everyone. He noted again how beautiful she was, how lovely her face could look when she smiled, how slight she was compared to Will. He noticed that she seemed to have a habit of dry-washing her hands as she spoke, that she bit her lip sometimes as she listened, and that, unrecognized by apparently everyone else-including her boyfriend-she was putting on an act of pretending to be happy. Her smiles were pleasant but half-hearted, her attention wavering, her enthusiasm present but extremely dialed back. And she didn't look truly excited to see anyone. Fitz couldn't help but wonder if anyone there was actually _her _friend and not just attending for Will.

Finally, they finished talking to a small group of people standing nearby and turned to him. Fitz felt his pulse spike again and he swallowed down his nerves, determined to play it cool.

"Jem, this is Leo," Will said, gesturing to him. Fitz winced internally but didn't bother correcting him; there was no need to muck up the timelines any more than he already was. "We met at B&Q earlier today when I was buying the grill. He's new in town, so I thought I'd introduce him around."

Fitz gave her the most polite, friendly smile he could muster as her eyes met his, and held out his free hand, thankful it stayed steady. "Nice to meet you, Jemma."

Jemma's smile didn't quite meet her eyes as she took his hand and gave him a firm, if completely uninspired, shake. "Nice to meet you too," she said, but it was only that: a rote greeting. Her eyes darted away from him for a second before she looked back and said, "Where did you move from?"

He could tell she was only asking to be polite and not because she was actually interested. It felt like a piece of his heart crumbled in response, seeing that he'd failed to captivate her attention-that perhaps he was completely not her type face-to-face, just as he'd feared.

"Ah-Glasgow," he managed, trying not to choke on the lump that had risen in his throat.

"Oh? That's where I'm from." Then Jemma caught herself and she shook her head, rolling her eyes. "Obviously I'm not _from _there, I'm English, but-that's where I live."

Fitz brightened slightly. "Yeah?" That was common ground. Maybe they could have a conversation after all.

But Jemma only nodded. "Yeah," she replied, and sighed, looking tired.

Will, catching on that the conversation had died, squeezed his arm around her shoulders. "Ready for some cake, Jem?" he asked.

Jemma blinked and glanced up at him, then put on another smile. "Sure. Of course."

"Great." He leaned down to kiss her, and Fitz briefly closed his eyes to block out the sight, jealousy and longing swirling together in his stomach. When he opened them, Will had pulled back to grin at her. "Come on, let's go."

He turned to guide her in the direction of the kitchen, and Fitz watched them go with a rapidly-forming pit of sadness in his chest. "Nice to meet you," he murmured again at the back of Jemma's head, but she didn't hear him.

-:-

"Breaking up with Will is one of the best decisions I've ever made," Jemma said, pushing her empty glass away from her. "I don't regret it. I'm much happier, and I like being single."

Bobbi gave her a skeptical look. "What about Fitz? That's his name, right-the guy you've been writing letters to?"

Jemma sighed, wishing it weren't unwise to order another drink, but she had lectures in the morning to worry about. "If I could, I-I suppose I would… _like _to see if there was something there."

Bobbi leaned back a little, her eyebrows going up. "Oh, the truth finally comes out!"

"But-" Jemma sighed again, shaking her head. "It feels so impossible. He hasn't sought me out now, and even though he said in his last letter that he wants to try and meet up with me-"

"Wait, what?" Bobbi interjected, her eyes lighting up. "He did?!"

Jemma curled her palm over the side of her neck, feeling anxious. "But don't you see how it could go all wrong? Fitz would have to wait two entire years for me. Anything could happen in that time. He could forget, or decide it's not worth it, or meet someone else… and I can't help but think that the fact he hasn't approached me yet at all here in my present speaks volumes." She frowned dispiritedly down at the bar.

"Maybe he's just waiting for permission," Bobbi said gently.

"Maybe. Possibly." Jemma traced nonsense shapes on the bar with a finger before letting out a breath. "It just feels like the story of my life… everything at a distance."

This time, Bobbi frowned. "What do you mean?"

Jemma shrugged expressively. "The man right in front of me who wanted to marry me, I pushed away because it was too much. And now there's a man that I think I could actually give my heart to, but I can never meet him." She stared morosely off into the middle distance, and her mind, which was still idly picking at the accusations Will had leveled at her, suddenly caught on a new fragment of memory. Then everything else from that night slotted into place, and her eyes widened as her breath caught in her throat.

"Oh my god."

-:-

Fitz was outside, sitting on the the low stone steps leading from the patio out into the grass of the shared back garden, staring up at the night sky. The party had become a little too much for him; it was too crowded, he didn't know anyone, and being so close to Jemma without her knowing him had proved to be too painful. The patio was deserted, the grill having been long abandoned, and though he could still hear the faint hubbub of chatter and laughter coming from inside, it was otherwise quiet. That made it perfect for him to escape outside for a breather, to try and get his thoughts in order to decide if he wanted to call it a night or stick around a little while longer.

He thought it might have been a mistake to come. The lure of being able to see Jemma had been strong, but it had come with the price of not being truly able to talk to her because of the time difference, and having to see her with Will. Fitz thought that rankled the most-perhaps he could have endured watching Jemma from afar, but having to see her hang off the arm of another man when he himself felt so deeply for her just stung. He'd never thought of himself as a jealous man, but there was nothing else to call it. He envied Will and his ability to wrap an arm casually around Jemma's shoulders, to brush kisses against her temple, to feed her bits of cake from the plate he was holding. It was all casual yet romantic and twee and it made him want to be sick, but all the same, he wanted it for himself. He wanted a closer relationship with Jemma.

But maybe she didn't want that with him-maybe that was why she hadn't replied to his last letter the day before. It made him miserable, thinking he'd made her uncomfortable with his offer to meet up, but it was still possible to salvage the situation. He could wait and hope she came back in a week, and depending upon how she replied he could spin it that he just meant as friends. Friends met up all the time. Waiting two years was small potatoes for your best friend, wasn't it?

Fitz sighed, his shoulders slumping. He was so caught up in his own anguish that he didn't hear footsteps approaching until it was too late, and he heard a startled gasp behind him.

He twisted to look up and felt a jolt run through him when he saw that it was Jemma, her eyes wide as she lowered a hand from her mouth. "Oh-I'm sorry," she stammered, taking a small step back. "I didn't see you there. I was just-" She pointed over her shoulder, back toward the open door leading inside. "I needed to get out for a minute-"

"No, no, you're fine," Fitz rushed to say, desperate for her not to leave. "You can, ah, you can-you-um-" He squeezed his eyes shut, his face flushing in mortification as his speech betrayed him the worst it had done in ages, but he forced himself to take in a deep breath and look back up at her. "You can s-sit." He scooted over on the stone step, making enough room for her to join him if she wanted.

Jemma watched him for a moment, considering, before stepping forward and taking a seat next to him. She folded her arms over her knees and stared out across the garden, and Fitz shifted to face forward again too. He didn't say anything, mostly out of nerves, but also because she had implied she'd needed an escape from the party, and he didn't want to be a bother by pestering her with small talk. For the moment, it was enough to simply sit next to her.

An almost comfortable silence fell over them. Jemma continued to stare into the distance, seemingly lost in her own thoughts, while Fitz sipped slowly on his beer. It wasn't the instant connection he'd naively hoped for, but it wasn't so bad. Maybe she would look back on this with a smile-the scant few moments of peace she'd found at a party she didn't want to be at. He could give her that, at least.

After a few minutes, she looked over at him. "It's Leo, isn't it?" she asked hesitantly, jarring him from his thoughts.

"Um-" Fitz waffled. Part of him wondered if he should just stick with his given name, but the rest of him rebelled. Any earlier worry he'd had over muddying up timelines was moot. Time was fixed; he was always going to be at this party, so it didn't matter what she called him. "Actually, I go by Fitz," he said, looking her in the eye. When she gave him a puzzled look, he added, "It's my last name. Don't much care for my first."

"Ah," Jemma said, nodding. "Right. Fitz, then." She gave him a small smile, which made his heart leap. "Will said you're new in town, right?" He nodded. "How are you enjoying the party?"

Fitz pulled a slight face. "Eh," he said. "It's alright." Jemma didn't reply, just blinked at him, so he shrugged and looked down at the beer bottle dangling from his fingers. "I'm not really one for parties."

That got a laugh out of her, and when he looked back up, Jemma was watching him with a slightly dopey smile, her eyes shining in the light coming from the windows. He realized that she was mildly tipsy. He supposed he couldn't blame her; he'd probably be a little too far into his cup himself if he'd had a party sprung on him unawares.

"Then why'd you come?" she asked, amusement clear in her voice.

He shrugged again. "My best mate is always telling me I need to get out more. It seemed like a good opportunity." Obviously, he couldn't tell her the real reason-that he'd come just for her.

Jemma laughed again, softer this time, and nodded, rolling her eyes dramatically. "That sounds familiar. I don't really like parties, either. I'd rather stay home where it's quiet and read."

"A noble pastime," Fitz replied mock-sagely, and it was worth teasing her to hear Jemma laugh again, her face lighting up at something _he'd _said. Grinning, feeling lighter than air, he took another sip of his beer, then held the bottle out to Jemma. She immediately accepted it, taking a swig before passing it back over. Then she sighed, smiling, and settled her arms back across her knees as she stared up at the night sky.

"You know," she said after a moment, "it's a shame there's so much light pollution in the city and we can't see more of the stars. They're so beautiful."

Fitz had to bite his tongue to keep from rashly inviting her to his cottage, where the stars were much more visible, or from blurting that _she _was beautiful. Instead, he hummed in agreement and took a long sip of his beer.

"But we can still pick out a few constellations at least," Jemma continued. "See that one bright star, the _really _bright one, right there?" She pointed up into the sky, and Fitz leaned in to follow the line of her arm and finger, feeling a rush when he could smell the scent of her shampoo. Swallowing thickly, he nodded. "That's Altair," she explained. "One of the brightest stars visible in the sky here this time of year, found in the constellation Aquila. It makes up part of the-"

"The Summer Triangle, yeah," Fitz said, nodding.

Jemma leaned back just far enough to blink at him, looking a bit thrown at having her impromptu astronomy lesson cut short. "How did you know that?" she asked.

Fitz gaped at her. He hadn't thought when he'd spoken; finishing her sentence had just felt natural. And he couldn't even tell her that he'd learned the information from reading her copy of _The Backyard Astronomer's Guide _that he'd rescued from the train station. "Uh-well-" He shrugged lamely. "Science is kind of my thing."

She tilted her head at him, as if she were reassessing him in a new light. "Hardly anyone ever understands what I'm going on about when I talk science," she said. "Not even Will."

_Because he's an arse_, he thought uncharitably. _Sodding history professor_. Which he realized was unfair as soon as he thought it, and ducked his head a bit shamefully. One didn't have to be well-versed in the sciences in order to grasp the concepts, though it certainly did help.

"I know what that feels like," he mumbled instead, which was the truth. Hunter rarely understood him, and he frequently found himself having to talk down to the other engineers at the lab, which was frustrating.

"So you're a scientist, too?" Jemma asked. She'd perked up, he noticed, angling her body so she was facing him more. He couldn't believe that he was actually having a real conversation with her now, even if they were having to recover ground they'd gone over in their letters months ago. It was worth it, to have her real and physically present in front of him, to hear her voice and see her smile as he spoke to her, even if he knew more about her than she did him.

"Yeah," he replied, smiling back at her. "I'm an engineer. Mechanical, physics, stuff like that. I work a lot with robotics."

Jemma's eyes lit up. "Impressive," she said, and she _sounded _impressed, though Fitz thought some of that might have been the alcohol talking. Nevertheless, it made a pleased flush roll over him, and his grin grew even as he hunched his shoulders a bit to humbly play off her praise.

"I'm a biochemist," she said, puffing up a little bit. He found it adorable. "I have a little bit of cross-disciplinary knowledge from collaboration with the physics department at my university, but I'm afraid that most of it is beyond me."

Fitz shook his head. "Oh, I bet you could pick it up pretty easily," he countered, thinking of how she'd helped him brainstorm solutions for the night-night gun.

Jemma peered closely at him. "You think?"

"Yeah," he said again and, feeling bold, reached out to nudge her with his elbow. "You seem like a smart woman."

Jemma blinked again, biting her lip to contain her own smile, and made a soft, pleased noise as she looked back to the sky. It was difficult to tell in the dim light coming from the windows, but her cheeks looked a little pink. A second later, she scooted a little closer to him.

Fitz watched her out of the corner of his eye, still scarcely daring to believe that things were going so well. He wanted to pinch himself, but resisted the urge. He didn't want to do anything that would put Jemma off talking to him.

After another minute of companionable silence, she reached for his beer of her own accord. He let her have it, unable to keep from grinning at how familiar the gesture was, and watched as she took a drink, nearly draining what was left of the bottle. She smiled at him when she handed it back, and he finished the rest of it off before setting the empty bottle down on the step beside him.

"You know…" Jemma said hesitantly, looking down at her hands on her knees, "I've always felt a little bit cut off from other people. From having to grow up so fast." At Fitz's questioning look, she curled her hands into light fists and added, "I got my degrees very young. I was a bit of a prodigy."

Fitz knew how much of an understatement that was, and his heart went out to her at seeing how uncertain she suddenly looked, like she was afraid he might judge her. Wanting to reassure her, he said, "No, I get it. I can sympathize."

The look Jemma gave him could almost be described as longing, as if she needed him to understand her. He couldn't help but wonder if this was how she'd looked reading his early letters. "Really?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I, uh-I went through school pretty fast, too. And in America. It got pretty lonely sometimes." Her shoulders relaxed and she looked relieved, but his next words came out of his mouth without meaning to: "But, um-you've got Will, though, yeah?"

It was Jemma's turn to nod, but her eyes had drifted toward her lap and she didn't look nearly as happy about it as someone in a committed relationship perhaps ought to. Once again, Fitz thought of how she'd said that Will was an arse, and he felt himself get a little righteous on her behalf, wondering how he was treating her. "I mean-I wish _I _had someone," he added clumsily, pulling a face. Someone like her. He'd try his best not to be an arse to her. Not like Will.

Just like that, Jemma's eyes snapped back up to him and a shine came over her expression. "You mean you don't have a girlfriend?" she asked, a hint of a tease in her voice. "I find that hard to believe."

Fitz boggled at her a little. "Uh-what?"

She leaned in to poke hard at his shoulder. "That you're single!" she exclaimed. "Look at you. Intelligent, kind, handsome… you're quite a catch."

His jaw properly dropped as his face flushed. Right, that _definitely _had to be the alcohol talking. There was no other way Jemma would ever find him attractive, not after she'd had someone as classically good-looking as Will. But the words were still galvanizing to hear, and his breath skipped, his heart beating just a little bit faster at her appraisal of him.

"I, um-I-thanks," he said, ducking his head as his cheeks continued to burn. He'd never been able to accept personal compliments gracefully, and this was no different.

Jemma's hand curled over his forearm where it was braced against his thigh. "You really are, Fitz," she said softly.

He looked back up at her, and realized suddenly that she was very close-far too close, really, so close that all he could focus on was her wide, honey-colored eyes and the pale skin of her face, luminous in the glow coming from the indoor lights. She was staring at him intently, her eyes searching his-for what, he didn't know. The moment felt weighted and heavy, poised on an edge, and Fitz found himself holding his breath, unsure of which way they would fall. He swallowed thickly.

Then she leaned in to press her lips to his in a feather-light kiss.

Fitz's eyes fluttered shut as a hot shock ran through him. Jemma's mouth was soft and warm, and she tasted like the beer they'd been sharing. He wanted more of it, to kiss her until he'd replaced it with the taste that was uniquely _her _, to run his tongue over the seam of her lips and delve deeper to learn more.

_This is wrong_, a voice reminded him. There were so many reasons why he needed to pull away immediately-she had Will, she'd probably had a lot to drink, the balance of their relationship was off-but this was something he wanted so badly, longed for so much, that in a moment of weakness Fitz found himself kissing her back.

His skin prickled, all of his senses thrown wide open as she made a soft noise in reply, and her lips moved gently against his as her hand came up to cup his jaw. He felt like he was drowning, free-falling, burning up inside one simple kiss and he wanted to make the moment last forever-to bring Jemma with him and keep her and ignite something new, to rewrite their history, fixed time be damned-

"Jemma?!"

She jerked back from him with a startled gasp, her eyes snapping wide open as she scrambled to her feet. Will stood a few feet behind them, staring at them with a mix of shocked hurt and anger.

"Will!" she cried, her voice pitched high, wringing her hands as Fitz hastily got to his feet as well. "I was just-we were-"

Will glared at them both. "What the hell is this?"

Fitz snuck a look at Jemma, completely unable to look at Will. Her cheeks were blazing, her expression one of extreme distress, and suddenly he felt like an utter asshole, the lowest of the low. He should have gently turned her away. Instead he'd been complicit in making her cheat on her boyfriend, and he might have ruined things between them, if Jemma's theories on the fluidity of time were correct. He was a homewrecker.

He'd probably ruined things between him and Jemma, too.

"I-" Jemma stammered, looking at a complete loss.

"Look," Fitz muttered, breaking in. He glanced up at Jemma, who was resolutely not looking at him. His heart sank even lower. "It's late. I, ah, I should-I should-yeah, I should go." He jerked a thumb toward the open door. "Yeah, I'm… bye."

He turned and strode quickly for the hall that led through to the entryway to the front door without looking back, wanting to make his escape fast and put the entire night behind him.


	7. Chapter 7

Jemma was so flustered and gobsmacked at realizing that it was Fitz she had kissed at her birthday party two years ago that, as soon as she was done with her lectures the next afternoon, she got in her car and headed for the cottage. She absolutely had to talk to him, to demand answers-what had he even been _doing _there?-and she simply couldn't wait until the weekend to get them. Her thoughts were a jumble as she drove, running over all the little bits and pieces she could remember of that night. Time and alcohol had blurred most of her memory; she'd actually wanted to forget the whole thing, the unwanted the party coupled with the embarrassment and awkwardness of having been caught kissing another man, but now she was desperate to try and save every little scrap of Fitz that she could.

His brilliant blue eyes had always stayed with her, but now she thought she remembered curly hair and boyish features with a softspoken voice. She thought she could still remember flashes of his smile, the way it transformed and lit up his face. He'd seemed a little shy, but he'd been kind, and he hadn't pushed her to talk or make idle chatter, not like everyone else at the party had. She'd appreciated that. She realized he must have done it because he knew her well enough by now to know she hated small talk, but then she'd gone and babbled about stars anyway. She recalled feeling comfortable around him enough to open up. Maybe she'd just innately trusted him, just like she'd done through their letters.

But it still bothered her that he'd known her so well then and she hadn't known him at all-and she'd _kissed _him. It had been a rash tipsy impulse, but she'd still done it. She'd had the one man she thought might truly complement and complete her right in front of her, and she hadn't even known it.

And he hadn't said a word.

It was that thought that kept sticking in her mind as she drove, and making her more and more upset. By the time she finally reached the cottage, she'd worked herself up into a good snit, and angrily snatched her notebook from her bag to write a letter to Fitz, demanding that he explain himself.

-:-

Fitz wasn't expecting a letter from Jemma so soon. He was barely expecting anything from her at all, not after the way things had ended so spectacularly badly the night before-that is, if she even remembered it. She hadn't mentioned the incident once in all the months they'd been writing to each other, so maybe she'd pushed it completely out of her mind, or she'd been more drunk than he thought and she'd simply forgotten about it. He wasn't sure which option hurt more: the idea that he'd wrecked their friendship for good, or that he'd been so unremarkable that he'd completely slipped from her mind.

He was just returning from a short trip into the village when he heard the letterbox rattle. Eyeing it warily, unsure if he was just hearing things, he shut his car door and walked around to go up to the stoop and peer inside. Sure enough, there was a letter waiting for him. His stomach sank. A letter from Jemma on a Friday couldn't mean anything good. He swallowed uneasily before plucking it out, preparing himself to get yelled at.

When he unfolded the paper, he indeed found yelling-just not the sort he expected.

_Fitz! I can't believe that was you at my birthday party! Why didn't you say anything? _

He blinked.

_You let me kiss you and you didn't say a word about knowing me! How could you? _

He blinked again, and then his face flushed. Rather than being angry for kissing her, she seemed to be more upset that he hadn't told her he knew her. But hadn't he explained that to her already, why he couldn't?

The feeling of her lips pressed to his, soft and warm, passed through his sense memory, and he shook his head to clear it. He couldn't think about that right now. He turned to go take his bag of groceries inside and set them on the kitchen counter, then grabbed a pen from his drafting table in the conservatory and went back outside to write Jemma a reply.

_You know I couldn't tell you! We've been over this. It wouldn't have made any sense to you, you would have thought I was mad. _Fitz's pen hovered over the paper, wondering if he should even acknowledge that she'd mentioned the kiss. But she'd put it out there in the open, so he needed to face it. _And I'm sorry about the kiss. I shouldn't have done it. _

Logically, Jemma knew that Fitz was right. She _would _have thought he was crazy if he, a stranger, had suddenly started spouting nonsense about knowing her and trading letters through a wormhole in his letterbox. But her rational sense couldn't drown out the hurt she felt at knowing that he'd had an advantage over her, and feeling like she'd missed out on the opportunity to get to know him in person, in her own time, or that their kiss could have been the start of something-never mind that she'd been with someone else at the time.

_I'm not sorry about the kiss_, she wrote back. _I liked you! I really wish you would have said something. Anything. _

Fitz's jaw dropped slightly. She… He couldn't believe his eyes. He reread her response three times just to make sure he wasn't seeing things, but her words remained the same. Jemma didn't regret the kiss. She didn't hate him for it. She actually _liked _it… and him. She'd liked him, even when put next to Will.

But then the reminder that she'd subsequently forgotten all about him dropped like a block of wet concrete into his stomach, and any joy he might have felt at that revelation was sucked right out. It butted up against her repeated assertion that he should have told her who he was, and it left him feeling brittle and sour.

_Must not have liked me that much_, he wrote before he could think better of it. _You completely forgot about me until just now_.

Jemma gaped at his reply, feeling like he'd just struck her. Of all the ways he could have replied to her admission, he chose surly and self-pitying? She felt like she'd taken a chance, letting herself be vulnerable by telling him she liked him, and he'd thrown it back in her face. Indignation burned in her veins.

_I was drunk! _she scribbled quickly, and threw the paper back in the letterbox.

Fitz heard the paper rattle sharply inside the box and pulled it out with a certain sort of trepidation. Her reply had come far too quickly for it to be anything good. When he unfolded the note and saw what she'd written, he exhaled a short, humorless laugh and squeezed his eyes shut as his heart sank even more.

_Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it doesn't. And anyway, you had a boyfriend. You weren't going to dump him for me. You couldn't even look at me when he caught us. _

Jemma looked at his reply, her body trembling. It felt like something was squeezing her chest, forcing the air from her lungs. She wanted to insist that she might have broken up with Will, but she knew it was only the attachment she had to Fitz now talking. At the time she'd felt so guilty and embarrassed for giving into a rash impulse that she'd firmly put the entire incident, and Fitz along with it, out of her mind and focused her attention on being a model girlfriend. Being drunk had certainly helped with forgetting. But now all she felt was anger and resentment that he'd deliberately meddled in her life like that, showing up at her birthday party (_how _had he managed that?) and kissing her, and leaving her with only the barest fragments of memory of what he was like.

_You should have told me who you were_, she wrote again, her pen pressing hard against the paper. _I really did like you. But I think you were just a coward. _

Feeling flush with self-righteousness-that served him right for disregarding her vulnerability-she dropped the note into the letterbox.

Fitz went numb when he read it, his heart sealing itself off in a way it hadn't done in years. His vision had tunneled in on that one little word until it felt like it had blotted out the sun itself.

_Coward. _

_Coward. _

_You're just a coward. _

Jemma had unknowingly struck a deep nerve, one that had the power to hurt unlike almost any other. His whole life, and especially since his accident, Fitz had greatly taken offense to any implication that he was afraid of anything; it was born of an unhappy childhood and the crippling insecurity that had resulted from it. In order to compensate he'd taken refuge in his academic and professional achievements, but the suggestion that he lacked the courage to try or do something, that he was deficient in that regard, really damaged his esteem. For Jemma to say something like that now wounded him more than words could express.

Letting out a breath, he turned and walked silently toward the conservatory. He couldn't talk to her anymore. Not today. Not when it felt like she'd just stuck a knife between his ribs. He didn't want to let his hurt feelings lead him to say something he didn't mean, or couldn't take back.

_Coward. _

Going inside, Fitz left Jemma's letter on the drafting table, thinking he could just bury it beneath his blueprints and sketches until he felt better equipped to deal with it. Then he headed for the kitchen to put away his groceries, but he hadn't gotten more than a few steps when his phone rang in his pocket. He rolled his eyes, scowling; he was _not _in the mood to talk to anyone. He went ahead and pulled his phone out as he walked into the kitchen, though, but when he saw his mum's face light up the screen, he forced himself to take a deep breath and relax. She didn't deserve him in a snippy mood, and he didn't want her to know he was upset.

Thumbing across the screen to open the call, he put the phone up to his ear. "Hello?"

"Leo?" came his mother's voice. The tone of that one word alone was enough to let him know that something was wrong.

"Mum, hey," he said, feeling his already-frazzled nerves go on high alert. "What's going on? Is everything alright?"

She laughed softly. "Oh, I'm fine, just fine. But I did want to talk to you. I just got off the phone with one of the ladies from church, who works at the Royal Infirmary. Susan Wallace, do you remember her?" Fitz hummed, and he heard his mother inhale. "Well, she told me that… she said that your father was brought in last night."

What little of Fitz that was left capable of feeling at the moment went cold. Rare was the time that he thought of his father now, not since he'd been a teenager and accepted that his father didn't care about him. He'd left Fitz and his mother after years of abuse when Fitz was just ten years old, but being as young as he was, a small part of him had still held out hope that if he just tried harder and did better, his father might love him. The ensuing years of silence from the elder Fitz had corrected that notion.

"Oh," he said woodenly. "What, ah… what's he in for?"

His mother sighed. "You know how much your father loved his drink," she said, a trace of old bitterness in her voice, and Fitz was hard-pressed not to snort rudely. He remembered that, very well. "Susan recognized him and was able to talk to his attending, and apparently it's all caught up with him. Liver failure. She said he hasn't got very long left."

"Oh," Fitz said again, blinking. The news that his father was dying left him curiously empty, devoid of feeling. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel anything at all. He didn't even feel any satisfaction that the man who had given him and his mum so much pain and grief was at the end of his line. Maybe it was because he was already reeling from the emotional blow Jemma had dealt him, but he suspected the truth was that he'd already run out of things to feel where his father was concerned a long time ago.

After a heavy pause of awkward silence, his mother said, "I know you haven't spoken to him in years-Lord knows I haven't, either-but he's still your father. I felt you had a right to know, that's all."

Fitz gave his head a slight shake, bringing himself out of his thoughts. "No, no, I get it, Mum. I appreciate it, I do. Really. Are _you _okay?"

She sighed again. "I am. It put me in a bit of a mood at first, but then I told myself there's no use getting into all of that again, it's in the past. I'll be fine."

He felt his mouth twitch in a faint smile. That sounded like his mum: always with her chin up, always looking ahead to make the best of a situation. "Good," he said. "I love you, Mum."

"I love you, too, Leo," she replied, and he was glad to hear her voice sound a little warmer. "Now, I know we missed our regular chat on Wednesday because I was busy, so, how are you doing? How is the lab treating you?"

Fitz felt a slight weight lift off his shoulders. "It's good," he said, reaching up to scratch at his eyebrow before moving to sort through and put away his groceries with one hand as he talked. "I'm still working on those concept drones that I can't tell you a thing about, but my boss just approved the design to move into the final development phase, and once that's through I think we'll finally be able to start on production."

"Oh, that's great news!" his mother cried, sounding thrilled. "I'm so happy for you. I know you've been working on those for a long time, you must be so excited to almost be done with them."

"Yeah," he replied, his smile growing just a little. "Yeah, I am."

In the end, Fitz was glad for his mother's phone call, because even if she'd called with the most awkward news, she followed it up with her usual bright, enthusiastic interest in his life, and that almost always made him feel better about everything. It certainly took the sting off of his fight with Jemma, though he still resolutely covered up her letters to him with his sketches when he went back out to the conservatory after he was finished talking on the phone. That was usually how he dealt with things that upset him: bury them away until they no longer hurt anymore.

-:-

On Monday after he was through with work at the lab, against his better judgment, Fitz drove across town to the in-patient care center his father had been moved to. He'd called the Royal Infirmary to ask after him, and he'd been informed they'd moved his father to hospice since his prognosis was so poor. He wasn't sure what spurred him to go see his father. Maybe it was some last remaining vestige of the little boy he'd been, sheer morbid curiosity, or just defiance of Jemma's voice whispering _coward _in his head. Whatever it was, his stomach was tied in knots as he parked in the car park and made his way toward the care center's entrance.

He tried to tell himself it wasn't that big of a deal, that he was just visiting someone he didn't even care about. But he had no idea what to expect from seeing his father face-to-face for the first time in fifteen years, and it was that which gnawed at him as opened the door to go inside.

Sighting the reception desk right inside the door, he approached the first person he saw behind it and politely cleared his throat. When the young woman looked up at him, he hesitantly said, "Ah, yes, I'm here to see Alistair Fitz? I understand he's a patient here."

Her eyes brightened in recognition. "Oh, yes, Alistair. Give me just a moment to double-check his room number…" She turned to the computer in front of her and made a few taps at the keyboard. "It's nice of you to come see him, he hasn't had many visitors," she added, glancing up at him as she typed. "Are you family?"

Fitz shifted his weight a little. "Yeah... I'm his son."

The nurse smiled, looking at him again. "I think I can see the resemblance," she said. "Around the eyes, a little." Then she looked back at her computer. "Right, if you take a left around the desk here, go all the way to the end of that short hall there and he's the last door on the left. Room 112."

Fitz thanked her and set off down the hall, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets to keep from tapping his fingers against his thighs in nervousness. His father hadn't liked it when he was young and he probably wouldn't like it now. Coming to the end of the hall, his steps slowed as he approached the room the nurse had directed him to. The door was open, and he could see the foot of the bed through it, someone's legs visible beneath the blankets. He took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself mentally, and stepped into the doorway, pulling a hand from his pocket to rap his knuckles lightly on the frame.

His first thought was that his father looked like hell. He was barely recognizable as the man Fitz had last seen; he remembered him as having some weight to him, but now he was gaunt, his frame rail-thin, and his skin a sickly yellow due to his failing liver with splotchy bruises covering his arms. He'd been staring blankly out the window, scratching idly around the IV port at his elbow, but he looked over at Fitz's entrance. His expression didn't change. He looked at Fitz flatly for a moment before saying gruffly, "Who are you?"

Well, his father's delightful personality hadn't changed a bit, Fitz thought acidly, even as his words still stung. He wasn't sure what else he could have expected, though; it had been years since they had seen each other, but he'd still thought his father would at least recognize his own son.

"It's Leo," he said, after an awkward pause where he stuffed his hand back into his jacket pocket. "Your son."

Alistair squinted at him briefly before huffing sourly. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.

Fitz shrugged uncomfortably. "I… Mum phoned and said you were in hospice. I thought I'd come by and see you."

"Why?"

Fitz shook his head slowly, at a loss. He'd anticipated his father being curt and unpleasant, but this dismissiveness was already a bit much. "It just… I dunno, it felt like the right thing to do."

"Hah." His father snorted derisively and looked away, scratching at his forearm again. "You shouldn't have bothered. It's not like you've been around for anything else all these years, why start now? I'll be dead in a week or two, anyway, or so they said."

Fitz grit his teeth and balled his hands into fists in his pockets as a wave of anger swept through him. "Hey, _you're _the one who picked up and left and never looked back," he snapped. "Don't you dare put that on me."

The look Alistair gave him was pure withering disdain. "Your mother hated me and you were useless. Wasn't any point, had to cut my losses. But what are you doing with yourself now? Got a job down at the local Tesco? Always knew you wouldn't amount to anything."

Bitter resentment and hatred long forgotten bubbled up in Fitz's chest, and he laughed shortly, entirely void of humor. "You don't know, do you?" he said flatly. "You haven't got a bloody clue."

Alistair scowled. "Bloody clue about _what _?" he grumbled.

Fitz pulled his hands from his pockets and clenched them again, inhaling through his nose. "I graduated top of my class at MIT when I was sixteen."

His father shrugged dismissively. "So you managed to scrape together a degree," he said, sounding bored. "Lots of people do that. It's nothing special."

Red tinting his vision, Fitz had to stop and count to five before he outright yelled and caused a scene. Only his father would view graduating with top marks from one of the most prestigious tech schools in the world as a pittance. Only he could take something that Fitz was proud of and make it feel like a failure. But he would be damned if he'd let his father trample all over the things he'd worked so hard for. "I got my _doctorate _at sixteen," he ground out, seething. "And now I've got a _very _nice job working in a lab that pays well, thank you very much, and it lets me take care of Mum the way she deserves."

Alistair crossed his arms, his scowl deepening. "So you'll take care of her, then, but not me?"

"You-" Fitz's jaw dropped. "Two seconds ago you didn't want a thing to do with me, said I was useless! But now that you know I've done well for myself, _now _you want back in?" His father opened his mouth to reply, but Fitz shook his head and barreled on. "No, we're done here. You don't get to abandon your family and then demand money after _years _just because it's suddenly convenient. You can piss off. I don't give a rat's arse whether you live or die. You're right, it was a waste of time coming here."

He spun on his heel and strode from the room in a furious huff. "You were a disappointment then and you still are now!" his father yelled after him, but Fitz didn't look back. He just kept walking, past the reception desk, where the young nurse watched him go with concern written on her face, all the way to the front door.

The words kept ringing in his ears on the drive home. Time and wisdom had told him that it was never his fault that he'd failed to live up to his father's expectations, that nothing he ever could have done would have pleased him. His father had never been anything but a perpetually grouchy alcoholic who was impossible to make happy. But the visit had taught him that even after all these years, his father's words still had the power to hurt. Fitz wasn't entirely sure what he'd hoped to gain by seeing him, but it certainly wasn't a head and heart full of self-doubt and painful memories dragged up from the recesses of his mind.

By the time he reached the cottage, Fitz wanted nothing more than to lose himself in several beers and a few hours of mindless telly. Grabbing a bottle from the fridge, he took it into the lounge and grabbed the remote before flopping down on the sofa and switching the television on, a deep frown etched onto his face.

But reruns of _Top Gear _weren't doing much to blot out the memories of the arguments and the pain and the rejection swirling around his head, and he found himself wishing he could talk to someone. He considered calling Hunter or his mum, but he'd never been especially fond of phone conversations and besides, he didn't want to burden his mother with the terrible behavior his father had exhibited.

Fitz knew what he wanted, deep down. He wanted to talk to Jemma-_his _Jemma, the one who was his best friend and always knew the right thing to say to cheer him up. He wished she were within reaching distance, able to come sit on his sofa where he could explain everything and finally get all the things he'd been holding in about his father for years off his chest. She wouldn't even have to say anything back. He just wanted her to listen.

There was an easy way to do that, at least-maybe. He didn't have much hope that she would ever come back to the cottage, not after she'd been so angry at him and called him a coward. Thinking about that again bruised Fitz's heart even more, but he realized that just writing to her might take a weight off of his chest, even if he had no way of knowing if she would ever read it. And if by some chance she _did _read it, and write back, maybe… maybe their friendship could still be saved.

Sighing, Fitz stood to go into the conservatory to retrieve his notebook and a pen. He brought them both back to the lounge and collapsed down onto the sofa again with a large sigh. He spared just enough time to take a long drink from his beer, then flipped his notebook open to the first page and uncapped his pen. After hesitating for a moment, he began to write.

-:-

Jemma had considered not going to the cottage the weekend after her birthday. She'd left the previous Monday once she realized Fitz wasn't going to write back, riding high on a flush of righteous indignation and feeling like he'd earned whatever hurt feelings she may have given him. She'd felt right in calling him a coward; why else would he have sat next to her that whole time without telling her that he knew her?

But as the week wore on, guilt and regret began to set in. Her own hurt at having missed a chance with him began to recede, and she saw more clearly that Fitz had done the only thing he could, being that near to her at that point in her life: he'd just been himself, while keeping mum on the things that might have scared her off. She couldn't blame him for that, and if their positions had been reversed she wasn't sure if she would have had the willpower to stay quiet. She might never know how he'd come to be at the party in the first place, but maybe the opportunity had arose and he'd just wanted to see her, the same way she wanted to see him. He _had _offered to meet up with her in her own time, after all, and she'd never replied to him.

As the weekend approached, all Jemma wanted to do was apologize to Fitz, to beg his forgiveness and, once everything was smoothed over-_if _things could be smoothed over-to broach the topic of meeting up again. But she had been cruel to him, and was afraid that Fitz would no longer want to write to her.

Her hopes weren't high as she drove out to the countryside on Saturday morning. However, she was prepared to be penitent and as patient with him as he required. When she reached the cottage, she got out of her car and pulled her jacket closed against the cool wind blowing and went to the letterbox to check it, just on the off-chance that Fitz had written her back during the week.

She was surprised to find a letter from him. And it wasn't just any letter, one of his regular short hellos or a question or even a simple apology for how they'd left things. It was a long missive, several pages of his cramped writing filling the small sheets of paper. Jemma looked over them with wide eyes and a certain amount of apprehension-she didn't quite know what to expect. He could have spent all those pages telling her off or saying he never wanted her to come back, or it could be a long-winded explanation for what had happened two years ago. As she turned to sit down on the low stone steps leading off the stoop to read, she found that it was none of those things.

_Jemma- _

_I don't know if you'll ever read this. You might still be mad at me. Maybe I deserve it. And I'm sorry for everything, I really am. But I've had a completely shit day and I've found that all I want is to talk to you. You've always had a way of making me feel better when I've been out of sorts, even just through your letters, and I don't know-I think that if I write all of this to you and get it off my chest maybe it will make me feel better. Even if you don't write back. So, I'm sorry for this too. _

Jemma frowned. Oh, it was the opposite of her fears-he thought _she _would never come back to him. Well, she supposed she hadn't done much to disabuse that notion.

_I know over the past months we've learned a lot about each other, but there's some things about me that you don't know. I've never told you about my dad. And honestly, it's because he wasn't worth talking about. He's not around. He hasn't been since I was a kid. He left and never looked back and I worked hard for a long time at forgetting him. And it worked, I thought. I've got my mum, I've got my job and my mates, I've got you. I don't need a dad. Especially not one as lousy as he was. _

_But I got news the other day that he's sick in hospice. He's got liver failure, he's dying. And I really don't know what I expected by going to see him-maybe there was still a tiny bit left of me that thought there might be some sort of 11th-hour reconciliation, that maybe my dad might not turn out to be so bad after all. But I was wrong. He was an absolute miserable bastard. He didn't even recognize me at first, and then he just kept on saying all these horrible things, like he didn't know why I'd bothered to show up and that I was useless and could probably barely hold down a job at Tesco, things like that. He had no idea what I do and when I told him, he managed to even make that sound like shit. Imagine, your father thinking a doctorate at 16 is something to laugh at. _

The more she read, the more Jemma's heart sank. Fitz had only ever mentioned his mum a few times in his letters, but never his father. It had never occurred to her to read more into that. It turned out he had a very good reason not to. His father sounded like a monster.

_I thought he couldn't hurt me anymore, but turns out I was wrong about that, too. And I think what hurt the most was that, after my accident when I was early into my recovery, I thought I was destined for Tesco. Not that there's anything wrong with Tesco, really, someone has to work there. But when your deadbeat arsehole of a father spends your childhood lobbing it at you as an example of how worthless you'll be, you find yourself wanting to avoid it at all costs. So when I could barely speak or hold a pencil or a fork and walking was difficult, all I could think was that my dad was right and I wouldn't even be fit for Tesco or any other job like that. I was sure the lab would let me go. Everything I'd worked so hard for was in the bin because another drunken waste got in his car and blew through a traffic light. _

_So I saw him today and he called me useless and mentioned bloody Tesco and all of that came rushing back. The fear that I would never recover, that I'd be stuck inside my own broken body forever, that I'd never be able to work like I'd been doing again. And it made me remember the way my dad used to yell at us, at my mum for not making dinner perfectly and me for acting out at school because I was so bloody bored. How he called me stupid and weak and the one time he hit me for taking apart his radio. I put it back together better than it was, but that didn't matter to him. I remember being afraid he might hit my mum, too. I can't believe I thought it was a good idea to go see him. I don't know what I expected. When I told him I have a good job now he actually asked for money, and when I told him to piss off he said I was a disappointment then and I still am now. _

_I don't know how to feel, honestly. I told him I didn't care if he died but I'm not sure if that's true. As much as I don't want to be, I think part of me is always going to be that hurt little boy who tried and tried to make his father love him. _

Jemma blinked against the sting of unshed tears that threatened to fall. She couldn't even begin to imagine how Fitz felt. She'd had a happy childhood with two loving parents, and the idea that any parent could treat their child the way Fitz's father had done him was absolutely appalling to her. At least he'd had his mum, she thought. He'd never had anything but praise and good things to say about her. She felt a sudden surge of affection for the other woman, for raising a son who turned out as good and kind as Fitz had despite the poor influence his father had been.

_I think I'm rambling now, so I'll try to wrap things up. Thanks for letting me spill my guts, if you're even reading this. I think I feel a little better after writing it all out. Maybe I can let it all go now and forget him for good. I'm better than him, and I'm better than Tesco. _

_Again, I'm sorry for everything that happened on your birthday. I understand if you feel taken advantage of. I shouldn't have done it. Please forgive me. _

_Fitz. _

Jemma exhaled and looked up at the sky, blinking rapidly again as she tried to get her emotions under control. Now, more than ever, she wished that she were able to see Fitz in person, to talk to and hear and touch. It would make all of this so much easier: pouring his heart out, his apology, and how she wanted to tell him now that he was wonderful and his father didn't deserve him, and that he had nothing to be sorry for. She wanted to hold his hand or hug him, soothe away his insecurities and worries and tell him he was worth so much more than he thought he was.

But she couldn't do any of those things, not without making him wait years. So a letter would have to do.

Shoring up her composure, she stood and went to her car to fetch her notebook, and sat in the driver's seat with the door open as she contemplated how she wanted to respond. It took her a few minutes of sorting her thoughts, but finally she put pen to paper and began to write.

-:-

Fitz had to fight the urge to camp out next to the letterbox on Wednesday morning. He still didn't have high hopes for a reply from Jemma, and he didn't want to set himself up for disappointment. So he let the clock tick past the time she usually arrived to start their weekly exchange of letters, trying to give her a little bit of a buffer in case she had shown up and was reading his rather excessive letter. He didn't regret that he had written it, but he felt a little self-conscious about it now, wondering how Jemma would react to him unloading his painful past on her like that. In retrospect, it might not have been a wise decision.

A little before lunch, he finally decided it was safe to venture outside and check the letterbox. To his immense surprise and relief-he swore his vision swam just for a second-there was a letter waiting on him, and it looked to be substantial instead of a quickly-written note. Evidently Jemma had been inspired by his long-windedness to write a small novel of her own. Taking a deep breath, he leaned against the door and unfolded the paper to read.

_Fitz, _

_You have nothing to apologize for. It's me who should apologize. I'm sorry I got so angry with you and called you a coward. I realize now that you were right and you couldn't tell me who you were. I'm sorry I was so cruel to you-I have no excuse for it. You didn't deserve it. I hope you can forgive me. _

Fitz exhaled as he felt a tension he didn't even realize he'd been holding leave his body. He still felt like he carried some of the blame, but her absolution of him and her repentance made his fears regarding their relationship disappear like mist beneath the morning sun. They weren't ruined. They were still friends. There was still hope that he could salvage things and bring up the topic of something more.

Feeling vastly reassured, he kept reading.

_And I'm sorry about your father. Not that he's ill and dying, but for the way he treated you. Both of my parents love each other and me and they've always been so supportive. I can't imagine ever doing to your own child what he did to you. Reading your letter made me furious. I don't think I've ever wanted to reach through time and give someone a thorough thrashing the way I do right now. _

Fitz laughed weakly, swiping a hand beneath his nose. Imagining tiny Jemma Simmons taking on his father was something of a mental treat, and cleared away some of the lingering gloom that remained in his heart ever since he'd visited the hospice.

_I hope you know that none of what he said is true. You're not worthless. I remember you as being sweet and funny, and now I know that you're brilliant and kind and you love your mum, and from what you've told me you've come so far in your recovery since your accident. The last thing you are is weak. I think you're a superhero. _

_I'm so sorry you feel so low about it all. I wish there was more I could do to help, but sadly I'm stuck here on the other side of the letterbox. Be kind to yourself. I think it's okay to not know how to feel. But if you ever need to talk again, about things like this or anything else that's on your mind, I'll always be here to listen. As much as I can anyway, through these letters. _

_Jemma xx _

His heart felt like it was burning in his chest, Fitz longed so much for Jemma in that moment. The feelings he'd been developing for her blossomed fully into what could only be love, and he knew now that he would do whatever it took to meet up with her in her own time, to see if their relationship could be anything more. She was worth it. The fact that she had kissed him once in her past and refused to be sorry for it gave him enough courage to believe that maybe she wanted the same thing from him.

It made his reply to her very easy, and very simple and direct.

-:-

Jemma had brought a book with her to read while she waited on an answer from Fitz, but she was far too anxious to focus on it fully. Her mind kept going over her words again and again, hoping the sincerity of her apology was apparent and that she hadn't come across as patronizing in the rest of it. All she wanted was for Fitz to accept her apology so she could stop feeling like she'd done something unforgivable.

But she wasn't expecting the letterbox to rattle so soon after she'd dropped her reply to him in. Frowning, unsure if that was a good sign or not, she stood from her seat on the steps and reached inside. She pulled out a single piece of paper, inhaling slightly when she read the words written on it.

_I really want to meet you. In your time. I mean it.  
If you want to. _

Of course she wanted to. She wanted nothing more than to have Fitz in front of her again, for them to be on an equal footing with each other and see where things might go if they were given a chance to be together in person. But it would mean two years of waiting for him, and Jemma wasn't sure she could ask that of him. However, the fact that he was even offering was enough to kindle her fledgling hope.

Biting her lip, she crouched down to pick up her notebook and pen so she could write him a reply.

_I want to. Really, I do. But you would have to wait for such a long time. I couldn't possibly ask you to do that. _

Fitz's first instinct, borne from years of insecurity, was to think that Jemma was gently trying to let him down. But he forced himself to remember again what she'd written him, the things she'd said, that he was valuable and worthy and that she hadn't regretted kissing him. He realized she was trying to give him an out, and he couldn't help but smile softly.

_You're not asking, I'm offering. And I do mean it. You're worth waiting for. _

Jemma felt her heart flutter reading his words, a soft, surprised smile breaking over her face. That looked an awful lot like an admission of feelings, something which made her pulse pick up slightly, her head going light with giddiness. If he was actually willing to wait for her, insisted upon it, well-how could she refuse him when she wanted it so much herself?

_Where do you want to meet? And when? _

Fitz's heart leapt when he got her reply, unable to resist pumping a fist in victory. They were doing this-it was actually going to happen. They were going to meet each other with full knowledge of who they were. Feeling like he could conquer the world, he grinned as he penned a quick response.

_I'll let you pick. Wherever you want-my treat. How's one week from today sound? _

Jemma bit her lip again, her entire body tingling with excitement. His treat? That sounded like a date. Not that she minded, at all-rather, it only made her anticipation hitch up even higher, her mind spinning over the possibilities. If he was thinking of it as a date, there was a whole list of places she could think of to meet him. Dinner sounded like an excellent place to start. She tapped her pen against her paper for a moment, trying to think of the restaurants Bobbi had said she'd been to. She didn't want to go anywhere Will had taken her, wanting to keep her first time truly meeting Fitz to be for them and them alone.

_How about Rogano? It's a nice seafood place near the city center. My friend recommended it to me once. And one week sounds wonderful. _

Fitz's eyebrows shot up. He'd heard of Rogano; it was a well-known Glasgow institution, after all. It was also a bit posh and pricey-definitely a place you'd take someone on a date. His breath skipped. If _she _was thinking of this as a date, then that meant that _he _could…

A thousand different variations of how their night could go played out behind his eyelids as he closed them for a brief moment, trying not to get too far ahead of himself. But it was too late for that. Things were getting impossibly better with each note exchanged, and he could hardly believe his good fortune. But it was really happening.

_Rogano it is. I'll make a reservation for 7:00. See you in one week, Jemma. _

Jemma's smile widened as she held his note. His words were a promise jumping off the page at her, one she couldn't wait to keep. She didn't remember the last time she'd felt this excited, this hopeful, this eager for something. One week, and she could see Fitz again. She knew she would be counting down the days and hours until 7:00 p.m. on Saturday. Oh, she had so much planning to do.

_See you in a week, Fitz. _

-:-

The next afternoon, Fitz drove to Glasgow to go make their reservation at the restaurant. He was wearing jeans, but he'd put on one of his nicer patterned button-downs, not wanting to look too out of place even if he would only be in the entryway for a few minutes. He could feel his palms go a bit clammy as he opened the door to go inside, as if in anticipation of the moment he would arrive in two years to finally meet up with Jemma, and he silently chided himself as he approached the hostess on duty. At least he had plenty of time to practice getting over his nerves.

The hostess looked up as he approached and smiled at him. He smiled back reflexively and resisted the urge to cram his hands into his pockets. "Uh, hi, I'd like to make a reservation, please?" he asked, hoping his lingering stammer wouldn't choose now to pop back up.

"Of course," the hostess said, tapping the screen in front of her. "When would you like to book?"

"September 24th," Fitz replied. "7:00 p.m."

The hostess made a few more taps, then frowned. "I'm sorry, sir, we're fully booked that night. Would you like another time?"

"Oh!" Fitz winced, then pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry, wait, I meant September 24th-but two years from now."

The hostess blinked at him. "Sorry?"

Fitz swallowed and nodded, attempting to look confident. "Yeah. Two years."

"September 24th, 2016?" the hostess asked, looking skeptical.

Fitz nodded again. "That's right."

The hostess eyed him for a minute, then looked down to tap at her screen again. "How many?" she asked.

"Two."

_Tap tap. _"Can I have a name for that reservation, sir?"

"Ah-Fitz."

She made a few more taps to the screen, then looked back up at him and smiled. "Mr. Fitz, your reservation is set for 7:00 p.m. on September 24th, 2016."

The glint in her eyes told him she thought he was crazy, but Fitz couldn't care. It was set in stone now-he was going to meet Jemma and take her out for dinner in two years and six days. It was going to be a long wait, but it would absolutely be worth it. Knowing she would be waiting for him at the end of the line, he was sure the time would fly. It wouldn't really feel like waiting at all.


	8. Chapter 8

On the morning of her date with Fitz, Jemma woke up early to go into the city centre for some shopping. She had a few nice dresses in her closet to choose from, but none of them felt right when she'd tried them on the night before, and she wanted everything to be perfect. Fortunately, it didn't take long for her to find something she loved: a gorgeous burgundy wrap dress with long sleeves and a skirt that fell to her knees and swished prettily when she walked. It cost a little more than she might have ordinarily paid for a dress, but she considered it a worthy expense. She was dressing to impress, after all.

Back at her flat, she took a long shower, spending a little extra time shaving her legs and taking care not to miss a spot. Once she was out and dried off, she did her makeup and styled her hair. She wanted to look fresh and natural without overdoing it, so she stuck to neutral colors for her eyes and rosy pinks for her cheeks and lips. She curled her hair in soft waves, and after she was done and dressed, took stock of herself in the mirror. Jemma didn't consider herself to be vain, but she thought she looked rather good, pretty enough to possibly stun Fitz. She hoped she did. She had a lot of expectations for this date, and knocking Fitz off his feet was one of them.

Smoothing her hand down the front of her dress, she took in a deep breath and let it out slowly in an effort to calm the faint nerves that were fluttering in her stomach. Then she grabbed her purse and coat and headed for the door.

By the time she arrived at Rogano, her nerves had blossomed into an excited buzz in anticipation of the unknown. She was on high alert as she opened the door to go inside, half-expecting to see someone who could be Fitz waiting on her. Her memory of what he looked like was fuzzy, so any man she saw had the potential to be him.

She approached the hostess, trying her best not to look into the restaurant beyond. The hostess greeted her with a smile. "Can I help you?" she asked pleasantly.

Jemma nodded. "Yes, I have a reservation."

"Name, please?"

"Simmons." Then Jemma paused, a thought occurring to her. "Actually, it might be under Fitz."

The hostess nodded, consulting the tablet screen set into the small podium in front of her. She made a few taps at it, and suddenly her eyes widened. When she looked back up, there was a sparkle in her eyes and a smile tugging at her lips. "Right this way, please," she said, and gestured for Jemma to follow her.

They went into the main dining room, where the hostess led her to a table for two tucked into a cozy corner near the back. Jemma smiled at the hostess as she sat down, taking in the pristine white tablecloth, the gleaming silverware, and the spotless wine glasses. The hostess set a menu down in front of her. "Enjoy your meal," she said, smiling again.

"Thank you," Jemma said, and watched as she returned back to her post at the front of the restaurant. Then she took in a slow, calming breath and looked around. The restaurant was crowded, busy on a Saturday evening, the low hubbub of the patrons' chatter providing a pleasant backdrop to the intimate atmosphere the low lighting provided. As far as first date locations went, Jemma felt she'd set the bar rather high.

A waiter suddenly appeared at her elbow. "Would you like some wine while you wait?" he asked, holding up a bottle of expensive-looking red. "Compliments of the house."

Jemma blinked in surprise. "Oh-yes, please, thank you." She watched as he poured her a glass, filling it halfway, and smiled at him when he was done.

He smiled back. "Good luck," he whispered, then turned to head back for the kitchen.

Her smile turned a bit amused. It seemed the restaurant staff was aware that their date was a little out of the ordinary. It made her heart race in her chest just a little, knowing that everyone knew something very special was set to happen.

Happy nerves twisting through her stomach, she looked toward the front of the restaurant and the people gathered near the hostess' booth waiting to be seated, trying to see if any of them might be Fitz. All she saw were couples, though, or groups; no one by themselves. But no matter-she had arrived a little early, as she usually did for everything. Fitz still had plenty of time.

She took a sip of her wine and decided to look over the menu. At the very least, she could decide on an appetizer and ask if it was something Fitz would be interested in trying when he arrived. But she'd barely opened the menu before her curiosity and excitement made her look back up again, her eyes straying to the entrance. There still wasn't anyone who looked to be by themselves.

Jemma turned her attention back to the menu, trying to keep herself occupied and her mind from spinning. The Cullen skink looked good, but so did the smoked salmon. However, she knew that the caviar listed as being included with the salmon wasn't for everyone, and Fitz might not like it. Perhaps it would be safer to stick with the soup, or even the scallops. Yes, that sounded like a good idea. She could worry about looking over the main dishes once Fitz was there. Her mind made up, she closed the menu and sat up straighter, reaching out to take another sip of her wine.

A few minutes passed. She fiddled with her silverware a little, had some more wine, and watched waiters move around the room, carrying platters of food or refilling drinks. She tried not to be too obvious about eyeing the front of the restaurant, but she couldn't help it. She was looking forward to seeing Fitz too much, more than ready to speak to him in person as equals and jumpstart a new phase of their relationship.

More time passed, and a bit of unease began to creep in. She hadn't taken her eyes off the hostess booth much, and she hadn't seen anyone who could possibly be Fitz. Pulling her phone from her purse, she checked the time and saw that it was 7:20. Frowning, she set her phone down and bit her lip, wishing she had a way to contact him. Maybe he was caught in traffic and was running late. Maybe he was taking the metro and it was running behind schedule now. Or maybe he was just a habitually late person-she wouldn't know, never having met up with him before. It would surprise her if he was, because he'd always responded promptly to her letters once she'd arrived to start their weekly exchange, but she couldn't know for sure.

Eventually, she drained her wine, and the waiter came to refill her glass. She saw his gaze focus in on the empty seat across from her, and she swallowed anxiously, forcing a small smile for him. After he left, she picked up the glass and took a slightly larger gulp than necessary.

As the minutes ticked on and the chair remained empty, Jemma's heart sank further and further, all of the excitement and happiness she had felt slowly draining away. The pitying looks she began to get from the staff only made it worse. A horrible certainty she didn't want to face was forming, but she tried to push it away. He wouldn't. He couldn't possibly. He wasn't this cruel.

But the longer she sat alone, the more certain she became that Fitz wasn't going to come. He'd stood her up.

-:-

Jemma stayed until closing time, in the faint hope that something had just gone terribly wrong and Fitz would eventually come bursting through the door, wind in his hair and an apology on his lips. But as the restaurant began to empty and busboys came out to clear away dirty dishes, she knew it was time to leave.

Utterly heartbroken, she stood and collected her purse, then quietly made her way toward the front of the restaurant. The staff cleaning tables looked up at her as she passed, and the sadness on their faces burned her. Ducking her head, she let her hair fall forward to hide her face and hurried out the door, desperate to get home and give in to the tears that were threatening to fall.

-:-

The morning of the 25th, Fitz woke up earlier than he usually did, eager to get a start to his day. He and Jemma hadn't made any concrete plans to write to each other again after their date in his future, but he assumed she would want to tell him about it. He managed to eat his breakfast even though his stomach was doing loops, he was so anxious to hear how it went. Did they have fun? Had he managed not to make an idiot of himself? How beautiful had Jemma looked? Did they go for dessert after? Did anything _else _happen after? The possibilities were limitless and he was itching for her to tell him all about it. Who knew, if he was incredibly lucky, he might even get a note from his future self saying that he now had a girlfriend.

He managed to keep himself occupied long enough to give Jemma a reasonable amount of time to drive out to the cottage from the city. Then he went outside with a pep in his step, almost skipping to the letterbox. Reaching inside felt like reaching for a Christmas present.

All he found was one small slip of paper with a very brief note on it.

_You weren't there. _

Fitz stared at it, uncomprehending, his body going numb. What? What did she mean? How could he not have been there? Blinking, he fumbled to open the notebook he'd brought with him and braced it on his knee, writing out a quick response.

_I don't understand. Something must have happened. I'm so sorry, Jemma. I don't know what would have kept me from going. But we can try again. _

Jemma was standing on the stoop, her shoulders hunched and her arms crossed tightly over her stomach as if she were shielding herself from more hurt. When she heard the letterbox rattle, she reluctantly stepped forward to pull the paper from it, and when she unfolded it to read Fitz's response, she choked on a dry sob.

She'd lain awake all night, heartbroken and devastated, trying to think of any reason why Fitz wouldn't have shown up for their date. The only logical conclusion she could draw was that her worst fear had come true: sometime in the intervening two years, Fitz had found someone else. He'd met another woman and fallen in love, and couldn't even give her the courtesy of letting her down gently. Instead, he'd chosen not to bother showing up at all. She didn't want to believe that the kind, sweet man she'd come to know was capable of being so heartless, but she couldn't see any other way to explain it. So she'd pieced together her tattered emotions and driven out to the cottage for what she told herself was the last time, to put an end to things before she got hurt even more.

And seeing Fitz's note _did _hurt, because of course right now he was perfectly sweet and earnest and full of remorse. She didn't doubt he meant what he said. She just knew now that at some point, he would meet someone else and forget all about her. Taking in a shuddering breath, she uncapped her pen to write her reply beneath his.

_We can't, Fitz. It's too late. It's already happened. _Her hand shook as she tried to write. _You were right. Time is fixed. You'll never show up now, because you were never going to. _

Fitz read her reply with an increasing sense of panic. Everything was going to shit faster than he could control, and it felt like Jemma was slipping away from him. Desperate, he started writing as fast as he could, words spilling out onto the page.

_Jemma, don't give up on me. Please. Give me another chance. I swear I'll be there. I don't know what happened in your time but I promise I'll make it this time. You were the one who's right-time is fluid. It has to be. I never would have actually gone to Will's party if he hadn't mentioned you, and that was already in your past, even if it was my present. Please. I'll do anything you want. _

The tears finally spilled over, slipping down her cheeks as Jemma squeezed her eyes shut, gripping Fitz's response in her hands. She wanted to give him a second chance, she really did. The part of her that cared for him and had wanted to make something more of their relationship (and still wanted to) was crying out for her to give in and try again. But she'd never had much luck long-term with men-Will was a glaring example of that-and if the Fitz of her time hadn't shown up to their planned date, he still wouldn't even if the Fitz she was writing to now put in another reservation. It was just simple logic. And it would be better for them both if she just ended things now, before Fitz found the woman he'd eventually choose over her, and she had to watch him slowly drift away. It hurt more than she could bear, but it was for the best.

_It's too late_, she wrote again. _You can't change what happened. You didn't come, so you never will. And I can't keep waiting. I was having lunch with a friend in Kelvingrove Park on Valentine's Day when I saw a man get struck by a bus right in front of me. He died in my arms. All I could think was, what if he had people who cared about him? Who were at home, waiting for him? But, what if he had no one? I couldn't get it out of my mind. I came here to the cottage to try and sort myself out, and that's when I found you. I let myself get caught up in this fairy tale of having a friend out of time and trying to make the impossible a reality, but now I know that no one is waiting for me either. _She sniffled, blinking, and a tear splashed down on the paper. _So I have to stop waiting too. If you haven't found me in my time, I must not mean anything to you anymore. _She hesitated. _I think it would be for the best if we stop writing to each other and move on with our lives. I'm sorry. _

Fitz's breath left him in a whoosh, leaving a sick feeling like he'd been punched in the gut. She wasn't breaking things off with him. He couldn't let her, not when she was possibly the best thing that had ever happened to him. He opened his notebook to a new page and frantically dashed off a quick note.

_Jemma wait _

He tore the page out of the notebook and threw it in the letterbox, then immediately started started writing again, his mind buzzing white noise.

_Please don't do this, you mean everything to me and you always will, I swear. Please. I'll give you my mobile number, you can find me and ask what happened. _

He wrote down his number and ripped that page from the notebook too, tossing it quickly into the letterbox. Then Fitz rocked back on his heels, anxiously awaiting Jemma's answer and fighting the urge to pace or pull at his hair in panic.

A few minutes passed, and the letterbox stayed silent. Fitz gave in to the need to pace. Maybe she was writing a long reply back, or maybe she'd actually called his number and was talking to him. The frustration of not being able to see or hear her was maddening, and he groaned to himself as he paced. Unable to stay inactive, he opened his notebook again.

_Please Jemma, don't give up. I'm so sorry. I would never intentionally hurt you. Please believe me. Just call me and we can get it all sorted out. _

Fitz waited. And waited. Half an hour passed, and no response from Jemma ever came through. Eventually, he was forced to confront the reality that she had meant what she wrote and that she was gone, and would likely never come back.

His heart felt like it had hollowed out from the inside and was collapsing in on itself. He didn't understand how things had gone so terribly wrong just when they were on the cusp of changing so much for the better. What in the hell had happened? Why had he not shown up to their date? He couldn't think of a single reason that would keep him from meeting her, or at the very least from finding a way to contact her and let her know that he couldn't make it and needed to reschedule. He looked down at Jemma's last letter in despair. There were a few splotches on it, where liquid had obviously hit the paper and blurred the ink. She'd been _crying_. The knowledge that he'd hurt her so deeply, however unintentionally, wounded him to his core.

And now he'd lost her, probably for good.

He'd never wanted to go forward in time and kick his own arse so much.

-:-

Over the next few weeks, Fitz spent time at the letterbox almost every day, hoping to receive a letter from Jemma. He knew it was foolish, because she'd said she was going to stop writing to him, but he fervently hoped that she would change her mind and come back. He believed that the connection they'd forged over the months was strong enough to withstand a misunderstanding, even a large one, and he wished with all his might that was all it had been. Something ultimately silly had kept him away from Jemma. She had his number; maybe she'd eventually broken down and called him and they'd fixed everything between them.

He left the occasional note in the letterbox, pleas to forgive him and come back so he could try again. Admitting that he missed her.

_Jemma, I'm so sorry. _

_It's been strange, going all day on Wednesday without talking to you. Feels weird. It's not the same without you. _

_Watched The Great British Bake-Off tonight and thought of you. _

_Please write back to me. _

He knew he was being desperate and that his behavior wasn't exactly healthy, but he was clinging to the hope that things could still be salvaged between them. Jemma just needed some time.

However, a tiny voice inside him told him that, deep down, he knew that wasn't true. Jemma was gone for good and there was nothing he could do to get her back.

It was hard, accepting that he'd lost her, and it sent him spiraling into a terrible funk. But he knew he needed to do it if he was ever going to get on with his life. She'd said that she couldn't keep waiting and neither, he realized, could he. Even if he was ready and willing to.

As weeks turned into months, there were also certain things Fitz knew needed to happen if Jemma's life was to work out the way it was supposed to. She needed to be able to move into the cottage in order to be able to come back someday and find him, which meant that he needed to move out. Fortunately, he felt like he'd made enough progress in his recovery that he was ready to handle life in the city again. So he met with an estate agent and made plans to have the cottage put up for lease, and started browsing listings for flats in Glasgow to find a new place to live.

Putting things in motion to ensure the future ran correctly also meant having to run one rather unpleasant, but necessary, errand.

One cold, blustery afternoon in early December found Fitz standing outside the small local college in Perth where Will Daniels taught, leaning against a stair rail and waiting for the top of the hour. He'd just checked his wristwatch when a small stream of students suddenly burst through the doors of the main building, heading out into the weak winter sunshine. The last lecture of the day had just let out, and Fitz was hoping to catch the other man as he headed home. Sure enough, he spotted him trailing after the crowd of students that had just exited, a messenger bag slung across his body and his focus on the phone in his hand. Fitz straightened up from the stair rail and moved to intercept him.

Will glanced up as Fitz approached; then he did a double-take as his face clouded over in recognition. "What do you want?" he spat, obviously displeased to see him.

Fitz forced himself to keep his chin up and his hands from fidgeting. "You know how you said you were looking for a house out in the country?" he asked, getting straight to the point. There wasn't any use in pleasantries. "Well, there's one up for lease out near Dunning that I think Jemma will love."

Will's scowl deepened. "How the hell would you know what Jemma wants?"

"Trust me." Swallowing, Fitz pressed his estate agent's business card into Will's chest and waited until he took it. He looked utterly baffled, but Fitz didn't bother to explain. There was no way Will would ever believe him, anyway. Instead, he turned and headed for the stairs that led down to the car park, knowing he'd just made the last impact he would ever have on Jemma's life.

-:-

Hunter helped him move into his new flat in Glasgow. It was a new property, a former primary school that had been converted into upscale homes for people who could afford it. Hunter had whistled as they'd carried the first boxes inside and he'd gotten a good look around the open lounge area.

"This is really posh, mate," he said, carrying his box over to where a counter separated the lounge from the kitchen. He set it down and blew out a breath, looking at the gleaming appliances and granite countertops. "Did you get promised a raise if you moved back?"

Fitz laughed, sitting his own box down next to where the removers had set his sofa earlier. "No, I'm just-well-my mum and even Hall, you know, they're both always on me about hardly spending any of my salary on myself. I guess… I just decided to humor them."

Hunter raised his eyebrows. "Hell of a way to humor them."

Shrugging, Fitz scratched at one eyebrow. "The money was just sitting in the bank. Might as well use it."

"Fair." Then it was Hunter's turn to laugh. "But this may be a slippery slope, my friend. First you get the swanky flat, next you'll be rolling up to the lab in a sports car and three-piece suit."

That brought a grin to Fitz's face. "Oh, I doubt that," he said, shaking his head. While it was true he had an interest in fancy cars like any good engineer should, fashion was not his forte and he was much more comfortable in plain button-downs, trousers, and the occasional tie now that he could manage them again.

"No, I'm calling it now," Hunter replied cheekily. "And the ladies won't be able to keep their hands off you. You'll see."

The smile abruptly fell from Fitz's face, and he turned away to prod at his box in order to hide it. The only woman he wanted was Jemma, and that wasn't an option anymore.

Once they got the rest of the boxes they'd brought over from the cottage inside, Hunter helped him start to unpack, putting dishes and cookware away in the kitchen while Fitz tackled boxes full of clothes. A couple of hours and one break for pizza and beer later, Fitz opened a new box to find stacks of notebooks, folders, and portfolios full of his designs and blueprints. Lying on top was one of his sketches of the night-night-gun.

Fitz picked it up and sighed as he looked over the carefully-drawn lines of the pistol, alongside the notes added on the bottom, some of which were recommendations for dendrotoxin dosing he'd copied from Jemma's letters. Seeing evidence of their work together caused a dull ache to well up in his heart.

Noticing that he looked unexpectedly glum, Hunter came over to peek at what he was holding. "Oh, yeah, that's your gun project, right? The stun one? How's that coming along?"

Fitz pressed his lips into a line and shook his head. "I dunno, to be honest. I was working on it with Jemma, she was helping me out with the tranq agent problem I've been having, but, um… I'm not sure. It started to feel kind of like 'our' project. And it feels wrong to finish it without her."

Hunter frowned. "Jemma's your girl from the future, right? The one you've been writing to?" Fitz nodded, and Hunter looked at the design again. "Wait, did something happen? Are you two not talking anymore?"

Fitz shook his head, exhaling and feeling the tug of his broken heart again.

"Why?" Hunter asked.

"She asked me to stop writing to her."

Hunter looked utterly confused. "Why?" he asked again. "I thought you two were thick as thieves."

Fitz sighed again, and shrugged before trying to put on a brave face.. "Time. It just didn't work. Turns out, distance is our curse."


	9. Chapter 9

Jemma was moving on with her life the best way she knew how. She threw herself fully into her work, spending long hours in the lab and in front of her laptop. She was determined to complete her research on the applications of dendrotoxins and ready her book for publication, all in the hopes of being promoted to Reader at the university. She hadn't worked so tirelessly or pushed herself so hard since she'd completed her doctorates, but the busier she was, the less time she had to think about her personal life and the way it always seemed to go so wrong. As long as her mind was sufficiently occupied, she didn't have time to think about how much she missed Fitz.

It was worse in many ways than when she'd broken things off with Will. Then, their relationship had gone sour and she'd actively wanted to move on, with a clean break to make a new start. With Fitz, she hadn't wanted to end things at all. She'd cared for him a great deal, possibly even loved him, but she'd realized that things weren't destined to work out between them and she needed to save herself from a broken heart. The irony was that stopping their correspondence had broken her heart anyway, but she rationalized that she'd prevented herself from being hurt even more than if she'd let things continue.

As she constantly reminded herself whenever her thoughts _did _stray to Fitz, things were better this way. She could stop living with one foot in the past, and Fitz could focus on his present instead of waiting for the future to arrive.

Noticing her extended hours in the lab, Bobbi had asked her once over lunch if she was still writing to Fitz. When Jemma said that she wasn't, Bobbi had frowned and asked why not.

"He found someone else," Jemma replied simply, stabbing at her salad with her fork. "He doesn't need me anymore."

The look Bobbi gave her was clearly skeptical, her eyebrows raising as she took a sip of her soda. "That doesn't sound right," she said around her straw. "You two seemed pretty tight in those letters you showed me."

Jemma shrugged one shoulder, looking down. "It wasn't sustainable. And besides, I… I couldn't keep living in the past like that. I have to focus on my life and what it is, _now_."

Bobbi still looked unimpressed. "You know you could always look him up, right? I told you that. Find him and see what he's doing now. There's nothing stopping you."

As much as she knew Bobbi was right, though, Jemma couldn't bring herself to do it. She was afraid of what she would find. Knowing Fitz had moved on from her, she worried that if she searched for him, she would find websites or social media accounts splashed with images of him and the woman he'd fallen in love with, and she didn't think her heart could take it. The potential pain of seeing him happy and completely enamoured with someone else tempered any temptation she felt to look for him.

Sometimes, though, her curiosity almost won out. But she always resisted, in the end.

Leaving Fitz had created a hole in her life that she was desperately trying to fill, and sometimes Jemma wondered just how successful she actually was.

-:-

In a parallel that likely would have made Jemma laugh had she known about it, Fitz was getting on with his life in much the same way that she was: by immersing himself deep in his work. Now that he was back in the city, it was easy for him to spend long hours in the lab, whiling away his time on all the new projects that came across his desk or fiddling with old ones-anything that kept him busy enough not to think about how much he missed Jemma or wonder how things had gone so spectacularly wrong.

He was glad for the opportunity to be back at the lab full-time, and proud of the progress that meant he'd made in his recovery-he felt like he was almost back to one hundred percent-but it couldn't quite compensate for the loneliness. He had Hunter, who was stalwart as ever, but his life was still lacking a little something. He woke up every morning, he showered and ate breakfast, he took the metro to the lab. He worked, he had lunch, worked some more, and came home in the evenings to his posh flat to watch telly and drink a beer, then went to bed and repeated it all again the next day. His life was lacking warmth. His flat didn't feel like a home.

His life was lacking Jemma's presence, whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not. He tried his best to counteract the emptiness he felt with his overtime at the lab and going to the pub with Hunter on the weekend, but try as he might, he couldn't manage to drown it out completely. For whatever reason, his future self had managed to ruin everything, and now he was paying the price.

-:-

Months passed and the seasons changed. Snow and bitter cold gave way to the gentle growth of spring, followed by the hazy heat of summer. Jemma quietly acknowledged the one-year anniversary of the day she'd first 'met' Fitz, along with the day he'd taken her on the tour of Glasgow. That day was still sunlit and pleasant in her memory, filled with smiles, and recalling it didn't hurt her too much. She still missed him, but over time the pain had faded to a faint bittersweet ache, and she didn't actively think of him often anymore.

One day in July, she was going over the completed first draft of her book with a fine-tooth comb. Her research was solid, but she wasn't sure she was presenting it in a manner that was both straightforward and engaging. She'd taken to pacing back and forth across the lounge of her flat, leaving her laptop sitting on the coffee table while she tapped a finger against her lips and muttered possible revisions out loud to herself. She felt like she was talking herself in circles, though; nothing she came up with sounded right, no matter how many times she reworded it, or approached it from a different angle, or tried to put herself in the reader's shoes.

"Ugh," she groaned as she paced. "'Dendrotoxin's potential applications as a paralytic agent are so varied and effective because-' No… no, 'effective' wouldn't sound right, not there. 'The varied ways in which dendrotoxin can be applied as a paralytic-' Ugh, _no_, that's not it either. Hmm." She did a few more laps in front of the fireplace. 'Dendrotoxin is such an effective paralytic because-' Oh, no, _not _'effective'! This is rubbish!"

Her frustration peaking, Jemma huffed angrily and stamped her foot. Then she yelped as said foot immediately plunged through the floor, the board having come loose beneath her. Stumbling, she managed to catch herself before she fell flat on her face, and carefully picked her foot up out of the floor.

"Bloody hell," she mumbled, staring at the one end of the floorboard that was now sticking up in the air. Then she sighed. She was going to have to report this to her landlord, who was going to have to call it in for repairs, and it was all going to be nothing but a nuisance. And it was a relatively new flat, too! True, it was located in an old terrace row, but the interior had been completely renovated not long before she'd moved in a year and a half prior. She couldn't believe it was already falling apart.

Grumbling about shoddy workmanship, Jemma set about trying to see if she could at least get the floorboard level with the rest of the floor again, or possibly just set aside, until it could be repaired. She had just grabbed hold of the end of the board that was up in the air when she noticed something beneath the level of the floor.

Squinting, she leaned forward to peer down at it. It looked like an object was nestled in the space beneath the floorboards. Letting go of the board, she knelt down to reach cautiously into the hole and pull it out. It was something solid, wrapped in thick plastic; turning it over in her hands, she couldn't quite make out what it was.

Frowning, Jemma went to the kitchen for a pair of scissors. Carefully cutting into the plastic, she peeled the layers back-and gasped.

It was her copy of _The Backyard Astronomer's Guide _that she'd left at the train station such a long time ago, and which Fitz had said he'd retrieved for her. He'd mentioned that the book was too large to fit into the letterbox but that he would find a way to get it back to her; in the months since she'd stopped writing to him, she'd considered getting it back a lost cause and had resigned herself to it being lost forever. But it looked like Fitz had indeed found a way to return it.

Her chest constricted as she considered what he must have done. He'd known her address from their first confused letters to each other; he must have come to the flat while it was still under renovation, snuck in, and somehow managed to hide the book beneath the floorboards with the hope that she would discover it one day. He'd probably left the board a little loose on purpose in order to make it easier to break.

Jemma took in a shaky breath as she gently thumbed through the pages of the worn book, only to gasp again when something fell out from between the pages, falling to the kitchen counter with a quiet clatter. Her heart leapt into her throat when she realized that it was a necklace. Setting the book aside, she picked the necklace up to inspect it. It was a small star-shaped pendant on a delicate gold chain, set with a few tiny white stones. She stared at it for a moment, her pulse beating unevenly in her ears, before looking back at the book. There was a small slip of paper sticking out of it. She slowly tugged it out.

_Don't know if you're a jewelry kind of girl, but I know you like the stars, so I got you one. Sorry I couldn't get your book back to you sooner.  
Fitz _

She blinked against the sudden rush of tears that welled up in her eyes. "Oh, Fitz," she mumbled, and curled her hand around the star pendant, clutching it to her chest. In that moment she wanted nothing more than to look Fitz up and find him, talk to him again, _see _him. But, she told herself, it wasn't Current Fitz who had done this. It was Past Fitz, _her _Fitz, who had been sweet and thoughtful and kind. Current Fitz had moved on.

The stark reminder of the friendship and the possibility of more that she had lost was painful, and for the millionth time, Jemma wondered what exactly had happened in the intervening two years to make Fitz give up on his promise to meet her, who he'd met who'd obviously captured his attention instead.

Whoever she was, Jemma hoped she was worth it.

-:-

At five minutes until midnight on New Year's Eve, Fitz found himself standing at one of the windows in the lounge of his flat, staring at the city lights visible outside, beer mostly forgotten in his hand. Behind him, the small crowd of coworkers and friends that Hunter had invited over were gathered around the telly, cheering raucously at the clock ticking down the seconds to the new year, but he barely heard them.

Instead, he was focused on the fact that 2016 was upon him, and that meant he was almost caught up to the moment when Jemma would meet him in her time. In just a few weeks, she would go back to the cottage and find his letter, and begin the best months of his life.

The knowledge was bittersweet, lodging a faint ache in his chest. He knew it wouldn't be a good idea to go seek her out, even once he was certain she would recognize him, because that portion of his life was already set in stone, and he couldn't change it. It was only the future that was unknown. And future him, for whatever reason, had gone and blown everything.

He still had every intention of making that date reservation. But what if no matter what he did, his fate was unavoidable? He'd started to warm up to Jemma's belief that time was fluid due to the events surrounding her birthday party, but it was all so complicated to think about. His past, where she'd told him he'd never shown up, had already happened. But his own future, where he had free will and control over his actions, where he could still choose whether or not to meet Jemma at the restaurant, had yet to come to pass. Could he change his own past by making sure he made it there? Or was he actually right after all, and was time fixed? What was going to happen that would prevent him from seeing her?

The possibilities were endless, and none of them made him feel particularly good.

His sad musings were cut short by Hunter, who called out to him from near the telly. "Hey! Fitz, mate!" When he looked over his shoulder at him, Hunter gestured for him to come join the rest of the group, who were getting ready to toast the new year. "Get over here, the clock's almost run down! You'll miss it!"

Fitz sighed. He wasn't feeling very festive, but he didn't want to drag the mood down. He gave Hunter a small smile and turned to walk over to stand with the rest of them, saluting with his beer bottle. Hunter clapped him on the back, grinning, then looked at the telly and started yelling out the final seconds of the countdown with everyone else. Fitz took a breath before counting down, too. As always, if he tried to stay fully engaged with the world around him, maybe he wouldn't have time for regret.

-:-

"I can't believe you've been asked to consult on a high security clearance-level government contract project," Bobbi said, as she and Jemma walked down a bright, gleaming corridor. "Wait-actually, I can. You're brilliant and you deserve this. But it's just all so cool, right? It's like you're working for a super spy agency or something."

Jemma laughed as they turned a corner. Here, the walls were lined with windows, some with blinds drawn down; others were open, allowing views into labs that looked rather high-tech and fancy. It was a view into the sort of life she might have had if she'd chosen to go into the private sector after graduation instead of remaining in academia. It only made her even more excited to get to work on the project to which she'd been asked to lend her expertise.

"It's not like I'm being asked to be James Bond, or even Q," she said, smiling. "I haven't even been given full details on the project yet. That's going to happen at today's meeting. The only thing that's 'super spy' about it is how super secret they're keeping it."

Bobbi shrugged gamely, smiling too. "I just think it's funny it happens to be at the same lab my boyfriend works at."

Jemma gave her a slightly wry look. "I suppose you're lucky you even _have _a boyfriend right now," she said. "I swear, I've never seen a couple as constantly hot and cold as the two of you. How many times now have you broken up only to get back together a week later?"

If she was offended by Jemma's assessment of her dating life, Bobbi didn't show it. Instead, she kept smiling, looking completely unbothered-in fact, the tilt of her head made it look as though she actually agreed with her. "It keeps things interesting," she replied. "At least I know I'll never be bored. And he loves it, even if he won't admit it."

Jemma just shook her head, grinning to herself. They were definitely an unconventional pair, but Bobbi had never seemed truly unhappy with him. As long as that stayed true, she figured that whatever worked for them was harmless in the long run.

-:-

"It's bloody warm out here for February, isn't it?" Hunter complained as they walked down the street. He shifted uncomfortably. "Really wishing I hadn't worn a coat."

Fitz laughed as they came to a crosswalk. "Should've watched the news this morning for the weather." He grinned and stretched out one of his arms, feeling perfectly comfortable in his light jacket. "You could have saved yourself a lot of misery." The light turned, indicating it was safe to cross, and they stepped off with the others who were waiting to walk across the street.

"Oh, shove it," Hunter grumbled without much heat, tugging at his collar. "Can't believe I let you talk me into coming with you to the lab on a weekend. I could be having a lie-in right now."

Fitz gave him a chastising look. "It's only for an hour or two, and then we're going straight to the pub. Promise."

"Yeah, yeah," Hunter replied. "You're just lucky one of the servers needs maintenance." He pulled at his coat again. "Can't wait until we get inside so I can take this thing off."

Laughing, Fitz just pushed Hunter ahead of him by the shoulder, urging him to walk faster if he was that desperate.

-:-

They came to another corridor, this one lined with a row of doors. Bobbi walked right up to one of them with practiced ease and knocked quietly on the doorframe, peering through the door, which was slightly ajar. "Come in," a voice called from inside, and she pushed the door open wider.

Her boyfriend was sitting at his desk, fingers flying rapidly over his keyboard, focus intent on the screen in front of him. He raised one finger to indicate he needed a second, then went back to typing. A moment later, he finished with a flourish and turned in his swivel seat to face them. "Good morning, ladies," he said, standing and giving Bobbi a peck on the cheek. Then he nodded at Jemma. "Long time, no see."

Jemma smiled back contritely. "Sorry, Hunter."

She'd met Bobbi's boyfriend before, of course, but the long hours she'd taken to keeping in the lab and at home, busy writing her book, meant she hadn't had a lot of time for socializing lately. Besides, it wasn't very fun being the third wheel, no matter how much Bobbi and Hunter insisted they liked having her along. She'd turned down invitations to hang out more often than she'd accepted them. Even today, Bobbi had come along with her as an excuse to visit Hunter on his lunch break while she had her meetings for her consulting project, and Jemma would be going her separate way after stopping by for a quick hello.

-:-

"Hey, I forgot to ask," Fitz said as they turned onto the street that the lab was located on. "Did you want to stay for the Premier League match tonight? Man U's on and I think they've got a shot. And the pub crowd's good to watch with."

Hunter pulled a face and shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets. "Sorry, no, I can't. I promised Bobbi I'd take her out tonight."

Fitz pursed his lips. "Ah yes, that's right," he said slowly. "I forgot, you've got yourself a girlfriend now." The relationship was so new that he had actually forgotten her name until Hunter had just mentioned it. He'd yet to meet her for himself.

"Yep," Hunter replied. "And she'll kill me if I don't take her to dinner on Valentine's Day."

Fitz laughed, but cut himself off as a realization struck him. He stopped dead in the middle of the pavement, his mouth falling open. "What day is it?" he asked hoarsely.

Hunter, who had taken a few more steps before he realized that Fitz was no longer keeping stride with him, turned around to give him an odd look. "Valentine's Day," he repeated. "You know, February 14th." When Fitz just kept standing there, looking dumbstruck, he took a step toward him and said, "What, do you have a secret girlfriend that I don't know about and you just realized you've bollocksed up a romantic night for her?"

Fitz shook his head. "No, I-"

In his mind's eye, he could see flashes of Jemma's last letter to him, her looping handwriting spelling out that she'd been somewhere specific on Valentine's Day, 2016. His breath caught as he realized that meant he knew where she would be today, and that he could see her. Not speak to her, of course-the past was already set-but he could at least see her one last time, and maybe bring himself some closure. Perhaps it could help him finally shut the door on that portion of his life and move on. But he couldn't remember where exactly she'd said she was. And her letter was still in the box he'd left at the cottage when he'd moved out over a year previously.

It was a bad idea. He shouldn't do it. It would take him nearly an hour just to drive out to the cottage, and another to get back, and in that time he might miss his chance anyway.

In front of him, Hunter was frowning. "Fitz. Mate?" he asked. "You alright?"

But the lure of being able to see Jemma after all this time, just for a moment, was too great. Fitz sucked in a long breath. "I've, um-I-I've got to go," he muttered. He turned around and started walking quickly down the street the way they'd come, heading back to his flat and his car.

"Fitz?!" he heard Hunter call. "Fitz, what the hell-wait!"

He kept walking without looking back.

-:-

Hunter shrugged, looking unperturbed that Jemma hadn't come to hang out with them in awhile. "No worries, I know you've been busy. So, are you excited to be working on SciTech's latest and greatest? I haven't heard anything specific, but the buzz around here is that it's one of the biggest things we've had come down the pipeline in a while."

"Oooh," Bobbi crooned, gently nudging Jemma with her elbow. "This could really be a feather in your cap. You'll get your chair sooner than you think."

Jemma ducked her head slightly. "Maybe," she said humbly. "I'll admit I accepted the job because it would look sterling on my CV, but also because I was excited for the opportunity to-"

Her eye caught on something hanging above Hunter's desk, her breath stalling as she realized it was a framed drawing of Fitz's night-night gun prototype. She looked closer at it, almost unwilling to believe her eyes, but it was undeniable: the unique lines and shapes of the gun's design were very familiar to her from the copies Fitz had sent her through the letterbox, so long ago now.

Hunter, noticing that her attention had shifted, followed her gaze to the frame on the wall, then looked back at her. But before he could speak, Jemma asked haltingly, "Where did you get that?"

"That?" Hunter glanced up at the drawing again before turning back to face her. "My best mate did that."

Jemma looked at him, her stomach suddenly churning. In all of the times she'd seen him and spoken to him, Hunter had never mentioned a best friend. She was certain she would recall it if he'd ever said anything about Fitz. Swallowing, she tried to calm her buzzing nerves. "What's his name?"

"Leo Fitz." Jemma's stomach plummeted; unaware, Hunter smiled slightly. "Did you know him?" he asked.

"I, um…" Jemma was aware that she was acting strangely, and that Bobbi was giving them both looks, but she could only focus on Hunter and the odd turn everything had taken. Feeling her hands begin to tingle with anxiety, she forced herself to take a slow breath. Right in front of her lay the answer to all of her fears. If Hunter was his best friend, she could ask him what Fitz was doing these days, or where he was, relatively risk-free. That way she could have her closure without having to see the evidence of the woman he'd fallen for instead, and she could finally fully move on with her life.

"Yes, I know him," she managed after a pause, and cleared her throat. Her voice had gone all squeaky. "Knew him. How's he been? I-I haven't spoken to him in awhile."

A shadow passed through Hunter's eyes, and he looked away briefly with a slight grimace. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "But he died. Two years ago. To this day, actually."

The blood drained from Jemma's face as she stared at Hunter in horror, legitimately feeling her knees grow weak. Fitz was _dead_? And had been, all this time? That couldn't be. She couldn't process it. But if Hunter said so… that meant the entire time she'd been writing to him, in her time, he was already gone. Of course Fitz hadn't shown up for their date; he _couldn't_.

_Two years ago to this day… _

Her pulse started to race as a horrible hypothesis slowly began to form in her mind, fragments of her memory piecing together with what Hunter had just told her. She didn't want to believe it, not at all, but everything was slotting into place. "How?" she asked him, feeling her composure unraveling.

Hunter sighed. "There was a horrible accident," he said, looking pained and shaking his head. "Still don't know what he was even doing there. I'll probably never know."

Jemma's heart sank even more. _No. No no no please no_. "Where?" she asked again, her voice cracking.

This time, Hunter gave her an odd look as well before he answered. "Kelvingrove Park," he said.

-:-

Fitz was driving up the A9 perhaps a little faster than was legal, but he didn't care. All he hoped was that he wasn't caught and that he could make it out to the cottage and back in record time, before his chance to see Jemma was gone. He also hoped that his luck would extend to anyone renting the house since not having done away with the box of her letters. He'd left them behind for Jemma, really, thinking she might find them one day and perhaps be able to look at them fondly with time, but he knew she and Will had both left the cottage a few months prior. But he needed that location name. If only he could remember...

Gritting his teeth, he pressed his foot down on the accelerator just a little bit harder.

-:-

Jemma was running down the corridor in a panic, Bobbi and Hunter hot on her heels.

"Jemma!" Bobbi called after her. "Wait, stop! Just tell me what you're doing!"

"I don't have enough time!" Jemma cried. "I can't, I've got to-to-"

Her heart was pounding, her mind buzzing bright white noise, focused on one thing only-the memory of the man she'd knelt over that terrible day at Kelvingrove Park, who she'd watched die, helpless to assist him-the man she now knew was Fitz. He'd passed away on the ground right in front of her and she hadn't even known it was him. She hadn't recognized him as being the same man she'd kissed at her birthday party. She couldn't imagine what in the world had brought him to the park that day, so close to her, but she knew one thing for certain: she had to stop it from ever happening.

"I have to fix this," she said, and burst through the front doors of the lab and out into the late morning sunshine.

-:-

Fitz brought his car around the bend in the drive that curved around the corner of the cottage and hit the brakes hard before throwing the gear into park. Then he leapt out and ran for where he knew the spare key was hidden, beneath a fake rock behind a bush next to the old unused front door. It was exactly where it should be and his fingers slipped against the faux stone as he fumbled clumsily at getting it open. Once he had the key in hand, he ran to the conservatory to unlock the door.

Inside, the cottage was deserted, cold and dim without the central heating or lights on. Fitz headed straight for the master bedroom and the closet, where he'd put the box of letters before he'd moved out. He breathed a massive sigh of relief when he found that it was still there, tucked away in the corner of a high shelf.

He took it down and brought it out into the bedroom where there was a little more light, and opened the lid. Seeing all of the letters he'd exchanged with Jemma lying inside brought on a flood of memories and emotions, and it was tempting to let himself get caught up in them, but he was on a mission. He rifled through the box until he found the very last letter Jemma had ever sent him, not far from the top. Quickly unfolding it, his eyes scanned over the words on the page until he found what he was looking for: Kelvingrove Park.

Folding the paper back up, he stuck it in the box and shut the lid before picking it up and running back through the house, outside to his car.

-:-

Jemma's car came screeching to a halt in front of the cottage. Thankfully, it appeared that no one currently lived there and she wouldn't be bothered. Still caught in a panic, she frantically dug through her bag for her notebook and pen, and once she had them, started writing as fast as she could. She knew the chances of Fitz receiving this letter were slim to none-he'd left the cottage by this time in 2016 and had no reason to come back, but she was desperate. She had to try.

As soon as she was done with her letter, she ripped it from the notebook and hastily folded it before dashing up to the stoop and dropping it in the letterbox. Then she stepped back and clasped her hands tightly together at her chin, praying to a god that she didn't believe in that it still worked and that Fitz would get her warning in time.

Two years in the past, at Kelvingrove Park, Fitz hurried up the path that ran alongside the amphitheater, Jemma's letter in hand, looking around for any sign of her.

At the cottage, Jemma stared at the letterbox, bouncing agitatedly on the balls of her feet, running the words of her letter over and over in her mind, as if that would make them reach Fitz any easier.

_Fitz, I know now why you never showed up for our date. It was you at Kelvingrove Park that day. It was you who I saw die. _

Reaching the top of the hill and the pavement that bordered a street that cut through the park, Fitz paused to catch his breath and look around some more. He was just about to head off down the pavement toward the bridge that crossed over the river when he saw her.

Jemma was across the street, sitting on a bench in a section of the park that was set back a bit from the road, behind a large statue. Another woman was with her, and it looked like they were eating lunch. Fitz felt all the air leave his lungs as he unconsciously took a small step forward. Her hair was longer than it had been the last time he'd seen it, but it was undeniably Jemma; she looked so beautiful sitting in the sunshine, without any apparent cares in the world. Seeing her in person after such a long time left him feeling almost dizzy, overcome with the need to get just a little bit closer.

_Please don't go to the park. Just wait. Please. I know it's not fair of me to ask, but I'm begging you. Because I love you. _

Jemma couldn't take her eyes off the letterbox. The longer it remained silent, the more her heart tore into pieces, not wanting to accept the reality that she had failed and that Fitz was dead. Without realizing it, tears had begun to slip down her cheeks, but she ignored them to cross her arms tightly over her stomach, hugging herself against the chill air and the threat of a broken heart. She didn't want this to be the end. She didn't want to be the cause of Fitz's death somehow. That knowledge was breaking her apart.

"Please," she whispered hopelessly, still staring at the letterbox. "_ Please_."

_If you ever loved me too, just wait. Please. In two years, you can come to the cottage. I'll be there_.

Fitz stood at the edge of the pavement, watching Jemma across the street. He wanted nothing more than to approach her and say hello, to introduce himself properly and see where things might go. He'd told himself on the way to the cottage that he couldn't talk to her, but would it really be so bad? His future was still unknown. Maybe it didn't matter what had happened in his own past; his future was open wide and he could write it however he wished. He could meet Jemma now, before she ever went back to the cottage and met him, and begin a new story for them. They could start over and do things the right way. It would mean having to let Jemma get to know him all over again, but it was a price he thought he was willing to pay just to have her in his life again.

He looked at the letter in his hand, then back up to where Jemma was, his heart and his head filled with longing.

All he had to do was cross the street.

_You just have to wait. _

It was too late. Her letter had been sent in vain. Jemma knew that now, because too much time had gone by without a reply. Fitz wasn't going to answer her back, because he'd gone to the park without ever seeing her letter, and now he was dead. She'd watched the life slip out of him on the asphalt and she hadn't even known it was him.

She choked back a sob, pressing a hand to her mouth as if she could physically hold back her devastation. Would she have done things differently if she had known? But she couldn't have, because she hadn't even met him yet. Still, the maybes and the what-ifs were killing her, the one overriding thought she had being that she could have cared for him more in his final moments. She could have told him he was loved. Again and again in her mind, she kept seeing his broken body lying on the street, and she didn't think she would ever get it out of her head again.

Suddenly, she heard the crunch of tires on gravel. She looked up with a small gasp. Was it the owner of the cottage, coming to check on it? An estate agent arriving to do a showing for potential renters? Now she was afraid that a stranger was about to find her trespassing and having a complete breakdown on the front stoop of a country cottage in the middle of Perthshire, for no rational reason whatsoever.

A small car came around the bend in the drive at the side of the house, and Jemma tensed, instinctively taking a step back and wiping hastily at the tears on her cheeks, trying to come up with an explanation for what she was doing there that wouldn't get her reported. The car came to a stop just behind hers with a small groan before the ignition switched off. Then the driver's side door opened, and a man got out.

Jemma's breath caught as she recognized him. His hair was a little shorter than her fuzzy memory remembered it being, and he had a little bit more stubble growth on his cheeks, but it was him.

Her jaw falling slightly open in stunned shock, it took her a minute to find her voice. "Fitz?"

Standing still next to the car, looking up at her, he smiled.

Without consciously realizing she was moving, Jemma stepped off the stoop and walked unsteadily towards him, then ran. Fitz moved to meet her and she crashed into him, flinging her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder with a soft cry. His arms came around her in turn, holding her tight, and she wanted to sob again at how solid he felt, how real and tangible he was, how _alive_.

"You got my letter," she cried, her voice muffled by the wool of his coat. "You waited."

Fitz huffed a light laugh, and it was the sweetest sound Jemma had ever heard in her life. "Of course I did," he said, lifting a hand to stroke his fingers carefully through her hair. She'd never heard a Scottish brogue sound so gentle and perfect, and she wanted to hear more of it, so much more. Her memory hadn't done it justice. "What else was I gonna do?" he added.

She laughed wetly, then pulled back just enough to see him. There were the striking blue eyes that she remembered the most, the slope of his nose, the lines of his jaw and the curve of his mouth. She drank him in, eager to fill in the gaps in her recollection and memorize him so she would never forget again. He smiled, his eyes roving over her face; he seemed to be doing much the same, a faint tinge of wonder lighting up his expression.

"I thought I was too late," she said, bringing a hand around to cup his jaw. The scratch of his stubble against her palm was so palpable that it helped to ground her in the moment and convince her that it was really real, she wasn't dreaming, that Fitz was truly right in front of her. "I didn't think you had any reason to be here and get my letter. I was so scared…"

Fitz ran his fingers through her hair again. "I had to come back for your last letter," he explained. "I couldn't remember where you said you'd be that day. I'd just come back outside when I heard something drop into the letterbox."

Jemma sagged a little in relief, clinging to him a little tighter. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Fitz," she said, her relief quickly turning to despair. "I never should have told you to stop writing me. I could have prevented all of this!"

"Shh," Fitz murmured, reaching up to gently wipe away the last of her tears with his thumbs. "You didn't know. You _couldn't _know. It just looked like I stood you up like an arse." He laughed quietly and snugged his arms a little tighter around her, his expression turning soft as he looked at her. "You were right, Jemma. Time is fluid, and it works in ways I'm not sure we can ever understand. I went to the park that day because of a letter you hadn't even written yet. And now, you've rewritten time. Your time, anyway." He smiled, and Jemma thought it was a smile she could easily fall into. "But what matters is that we're finally together here, now. Yeah?"

Jemma nodded, feeling like her heart had just expanded three entire sizes in her chest, bursting with everything she felt for him: love, relief, happiness at finally being together in the same place in the same time, both of them on the same page. "Yeah," she replied, her voice thick with emotion. "We're here."

Still smiling, Fitz nodded before leaning in to kiss her. It felt like the culmination of years of longing and loving and waiting, and it made Jemma melt into him, sliding her arms back around his neck as his banded around her waist. His lips were soft and warm, and moved against hers with what could only be called a reverent passion; Jemma had the ghost of a memory of what his kiss had been like years earlier before it was replaced with the here and now, and it was so much better than anything she remembered. She lost herself in him, in how he held her and kissed her, their mouths seeking and parting but always coming back to each other. She was the first to tentatively run her tongue along the seam of his lips, seeking more, and the quiet groan that rumbled through his chest as she deepened their kiss made her flush with heat straight down to her toes with the desire for more.

Eventually they had to break apart for air, but they didn't go far. Fitz rested his forehead on Jemma's as his arms loosely circled her waist, and Jemma's hands curled into the front of his coat to keep him close as they regained their breath.

"Can I take you out to dinner tonight?" Fitz asked, his cheeks flushed. Jemma knew it wasn't just from the cold.

She laughed at his question. "Do you promise to show up this time?" she teased, smiling.

Fitz cracked a grin in return, his eyes twinkling. "I do," he said. "I'll even come pick you up at yours beforehand if you want me to." He paused, swallowing. "I made another reservation."

Jemma's eyebrows raised. "Oh, did you?" she said brightly, still teasing. "Very bold of you."

"Yeah, well." Fitz ducked his head slightly, looking a little bashful. "You said in your letter that you loved me, so I just assumed…"

Her heart leapt. "I did," she said quickly, cupping his face in her hands and leaning in close enough for their noses to brush. "I do. Love you. So much."

Fitz's eyes flicked back up to hers, a new smile tugging at his lips. "Yeah?" When she nodded, his smile blossomed. "I love you, too, Jemma. So much. I can't even tell you how much."

His earnestness only made her fall in love with him a little bit more. "Fitz," she murmured, and kissed him again, sliding a hand into his hair as she pressed herself against him. He met her eagerly, and the enthusiasm with which he kissed her back only made her hope for their future grow.

They were together now, at last. Jemma's one wish had come true against all odds, and she'd never felt happier.


	10. Chapter 10

"Alright, let me get this straight," Hunter said, shifting in his spot on the loveseat and glancing up at Bobbi, who was perched on the arm next to him. "Your flat is _how far _from Jemma's again?"

Fitz ducked his head, feeling faintly guilty. "A ten-minute walk," he mumbled.

Next to him on the sofa, Jemma just smiled and took a sip of her beer as both Hunter and Bobbi broke out into laughter, their amusement making a dull flush creep up his neck. He didn't see why it was so funny.

"Mate," Hunter said, still laughing, "that's creepy." He shook his head. "You bought a flat close to hers on purpose? That's… a little stalker-ish, I think."

"I think it's sweet," Jemma said, sitting up straighter. "In a way. Like he just wanted to be close, without seeking me out like I asked. And anyway, it makes things much easier now." She looked at him and smiled again, resting a hand on his knee. "It means we don't have to bother with long metro rides or anything like that when we're going between our flats."

Bobbi hid a sly smile behind her beer bottle. "You mean it makes booty calls a whole lot easier," she said.

Fitz choked, his face turning even redder, and he smacked his fist into his chest to try and clear it. "Um-ah-now, look-"

"Bobbi, that's so gauche," Jemma said primly, withdrawing her hand from Fitz's knee. He mourned its loss. "They're not _booty calls_. They're… stay-in dates."

Bobbi shrugged lightly while Hunter snickered next to her. "Call it whatever you want," she said as she raised her beer to her mouth. "It is what it is."

"Still think it's creepy," Hunter added, slouching in his seat a bit. "Bob, back me up on this."

She shook her head. "Nope, sorry, I'm always going to be in favor of Jemma finally getting the action she deserves."

Jemma tutted, but she was smiling, a spot of pink high on her cheeks. Fitz just sighed.

"It's not like I went to her flat and stood outside and stared in her windows," he protested. "I never went at all before we met again. I never saw her. I kept away, like she asked. Just-not… far, far away." He did see how it could sound fairly creepy when viewed in Hunter's perspective, but it hadn't felt that way when the estate agent had shown him the flat. He'd taken in the spacious lounge and updated kitchen, and when he'd realized how close it was to Jemma's place, it had just felt right. He couldn't be in her life anymore, but maybe he could be close by: a tiny, tenuous connection to her. And when he'd received her letter asking him to wait, it felt even more perfect. When time aligned and she was ready, he would be right there with open arms.

"Creepy," Hunter muttered again, but he was grinning. Bobbi swatted his shoulder.

"What are you even going to tell people?" Bobbi asked, turning her attention back to them. "When they ask how you guys met."

Fitz and Jemma exchanged a look. There were some things that not even Bobbi and Hunter knew. Jemma had lived a timeline where Fitz had died, and had never heard mention of him from either of her friends. Fitz had lived a life where he'd avoided catastrophe at Kelvingrove Park and had actually gotten to know Bobbi, frequently hanging out with her and Hunter when the two of them weren't going on proper dates. He'd even politely rebuffed her offers to set him up with her friend, who she claimed was perfect for him. He knew Bobbi meant Jemma, and as much as he'd wanted to see her, he was doing his best to avoid her until the right day came. In his timeline, Hunter had never told Jemma that Fitz had died. Instead, she'd inexplicably run from his office in a panic once he'd told her that Fitz worked there at the lab, but had taken the day off.

Hunter and Bobbi had been gobsmacked when both Fitz and Jemma had come back together a couple of hours later, realizing that their friends were each the mysterious person from out of time the other had been writing to. It was extraordinary and a little frightening to Jemma that her timeline had managed to rewrite itself while she had been gone, and once both she and Fitz had caught on to what had happened, they silently agreed with one look not to tell anyone. Things would just be much simpler that way.

And they had gotten rather good at that very quickly, communicating complex things with just a look. Jemma read what was in Fitz's eyes immediately and nodded before turning back to Bobbi.

"We thought we could just tell people we met through an old-fashioned pen pal program," she said, letting her hand return to Fitz's knee. He relaxed back into the sofa cushions a bit. "I think those still exist. And it's technically true, if you think about it. No one has to know it was through a quantum mailbox, though."

"Which I still can't figure out," Hunter said, scratching at his beard.

Jemma smiled. "Don't feel bad. Fitz is a physicist, and he couldn't figure it out, either."

Bobbi took a long pull from her beer. "Do you think you'll ever move back out to the cottage?" she asked. "You know, where it all began? You said you still own it, right, Fitz?"

Fitz nodded. "Yeah, yeah I do. Had the estate agent renting it out, but no one's lived there for awhile." He paused for a moment, deep in thought. "I don't know. I like being here in the city, so close to work and my mum, and I know Jemma feels the same-" She nodded. "And we've both got our leases to worry about. But maybe… I don't know, maybe one day we'll go back." He looked at Jemma and smiled, thinking of a day in the future where they might move in together and make things between them even more official.

Hunter saluted them with his beer. "You're gonna need it for all the kids you'll have."

Jemma's jaw dropped as Fitz choked again, and Bobbi laughed. "Hunter!" Jemma exclaimed. "We're not even engaged or married yet, it's much too early to be talking about children."

Hunter snorted gracelessly. "If you don't think the two of you aren't getting married after the way you met and got together, then you're not geniuses after all. It's like the universe _wants _you to be together."

That seemed to appease Jemma, because she suddenly smiled and give Fitz's knee a little squeeze before looking back at him. "Yes, I suppose maybe it does," she said, a sparkle in her eye.

After spending so long thinking that distance was their curse, that the universe had it out for them-well, when she said it like that, it was easy to believe in, too.

-:-

Jemma slowly came to wakefulness and blinked her eyes open to golden sunlight streaming in between the curtains of Fitz's bedroom window. She smiled to herself as she stretched slightly; more sunny mornings like this meant spring was almost in full swing in Glasgow, and maybe that meant she and Fitz could get out and about later in the day and do something fun together.

The man himself was still fast asleep, curled around her back with an arm slung over her waist, radiating heat like a furnace. That was one of the many new little things she'd learned about him once they'd finally synced up their lives; his body ran hot while she was usually cold, so she readily welcomed his warmth to chase away the chill, whether it be walking down the street together in winter, cuddling on the sofa, or snuggled together in bed.

Moving carefully, Jemma slipped out from underneath Fitz's arm and shifted so she was laying on her side facing him. He whuffled quietly once, but didn't wake. She smiled again and took a moment just to watch him, taking in everything about the way he looked: the lines of his face, the way his curls were in disarray, the light definition to his arms and the shape of his torso that she could just make out beneath the thin white tee he was wearing. It had been a couple of months since they'd met properly, but in some ways she was still adjusting to having him physically present in her life. Sometimes she feared that if she blinked, he might disappear, simply a figment of her imagination.

But he always remained, and Jemma couldn't be happier with the way he'd slotted so neatly into her life, exactly how she'd once hoped he could. Their respective jobs kept them both busy, but they spent almost all of their evenings together, mostly at Jemma's flat-as Fitz claimed it felt "cozier"-and they filled their weekends with lazy lie-ins and dinner dates and movie dates and all sorts of other fun things they found to do in the city. Fitz was just as interesting and funny and kind as he'd been in his letters, and he complemented her perfectly.

She couldn't believe how much she loved him, and how lucky she was to be loved by him in return. Carrying that happy thought in her mind, Jemma leaned forward to place a soft kiss to Fitz's forehead, then one to his temple and his cheek. She'd just reached his jaw when he stirred, rolling onto his back and mumbling indistinctly.

"Jemma?" he said, putting up a hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight without actually opening them. "What time is it?"

"Late enough," she replied, propping her hands on his chest and resting her chin on them. "We should get up."

Fitz made a displeased noise and shook his head, wrapping his arms around her and trying to roll them both back onto their sides. "No, 's too early," he grumbled over Jemma's laughing protests. "Come on. Sleep more."

"I'll make you breakfast," she promised, smiling brightly. Fitz's sterling morning disposition was already familiar to her. "I don't mind. I like your kitchen, it's a lot nicer than mine."

Fitz gave up on trying to coax her down onto the pillows and flopped over on his back again. "Ah, I see," he said, eyes still closed. "You only love me for my top-of-the-line cooking appliances."

Jemma tutted at him. "That is patently untrue. And, fine, don't get up if you like, but then I suppose you'll never find out what plans I have in mind for you _after _breakfast."

He finally cracked one eye open at her, and she gave him a saucy smile. He opened both eyes and swallowed, raking a hand through his hair as he looked past her to the door. "Right. I will just-I'll go put the tea on."

Jemma laughed and lightly swatted his chest. "You are so predictable."

"You love it," he shot back, sitting up with a groan and pushing the blankets away, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "And far be it from me to ever turn down sex with my amazingly stunning girlfriend."

That made her heart swell with warmth, even as she laughed again. "I do love it. And you don't have to be in such a hurry, I'm going to make sure you eat a proper breakfast. It's not _that _late."

"Says the woman who lured me out of bed with the promise of sex," Fitz replied cheekily, disappearing out the door and into the hall, heading for the bathroom.

"We'll have plenty of time for that after breakfast!" Jemma called after him, shaking her head with a smile. And they did, she thought as she stood from the bed and went to go find some socks to pull on. Now they had all the time in the world.


End file.
